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THE GOSPEL OF JOY

THE

GOSPEL OF JOY

STOPFORD A. BROOKE

NEW YORK
DODD MEAD & COMPANY

149 6* 151 FIFTH AVENUE
1898

Printed by Ballantynk, Hanson 6r» Co.
London &* Edinbiugh

CONTENTS

PAGB

THE ARMOUR OF GOD I I

THE ARMOUR OF GOD II 17

THE ARMOUR OF GOD III 3 1

THE CHRISTIAN RACE 47

THE LAST SUNDAY OF THE YEAR 65

THE HEART OP ST. PAUL 81

OF WHAT USE IS THE BATTLE? I05

REST 123

THE DAY OF ALL SAINTS I43

THE SIMPLICITY OF CHRIST 161

EASTER DAY 183

THE THIRST FOR GOD 20I

THE HALLOWING OF GOD'S CHARACTER . .223

THE NATURE OF MAN 241

WHAT? IN EXCHANGE FOR THE SOUL . . . . 261

WHAT IS THE LIFE OF MAN? 277

THE IDEAL OF THE KINGDOM 295

THE AIMS OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD . -317

WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY, THE KINGDOM OF GOD? . . 337

THE PREACHING OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD . -355

THE ARMOUR OF GOD

[Advent Sunday

Lit us therefore cast off the works 0/ darkness and
kt us put on the armour of light,

Romans xiii. 12

THIS is the day when, in preparation for the
festival of the coming of Jesus, in whose
infant soul was hidden the spiritual kingdom of
love, we are called upon, according to the old tra-
dition, to purify our lives. The Epistle, which Roman
and Protestant Churches have read from generation
to generation, which is hallowed to our imagina-
tion when we think how many millions have listened
to it and felt their heart beat faster, is embodied in
the Collect which, of all these Scripture prayers, is
perhaps the most noble in expression ; so noble,
that the words themselves, uplifted by their thought,
sound like a great ArchangeVs trumpet on a festal
day. And both Epistle and Collect call upon us,

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

while we look to our Master in the past, to realise
His presence with us in the present; to expect a
yet greater deliverance of mankind; to make our-
selves worthy of a new phase in God's progressive
revelation ; and to prepare for the many things
Christ has then to say to us by cleansing our hearts
and lives ; by fighting for the good causes of love
and justice, clothed in the armour of light.

It is a good and grave tradition. Its basis is
historical. Before the new life came to man with
Jesus, it had been preceded by the preaching of
John the Baptist. Before men heard of Love — of
God's love to them, of man's love to man, and of
both as universal — from the lips of Christ, they had
heard of Law, the law of right doing and of repent-
ance by right doing, from the lips of John. Moral
purity was not the gospel, but it was the plain path
which led to the gospel. To get clear of wrong
opened the eyes to see the further truth of keeping
clear of wrong through love of righteousness known
in God the Father, and through love of man known
in Jesus Christ. That historical basis has been
again and again relaid. Whenever, in the spiritual
development of mankind, a higher aspect of the
truths of love which Jesus taught has been revealed
to men, or a deeper insight given into the character of
God — these revelations have been preceded by the

THE ARMOUR OF GOD

call, made sometimes by one man, sometimes by a
whole people, for the casting out of works of darkness,
for greater purity in national life. And such a call is
necessary not only as preparing the soul for the
reception of new light, but also as guarding the soul
against the degradation of this light.

In human affairs which belong to religion it often
happens that a wider, freer doctrine leads men away
into carelessness of moral conduct, or that the pas-
sionate excitement created by the new ideas changes
into a lower excitement in which the passions may
become sensual. To protect ourselves against this
weakness, to guard Church or sect against it, the
first, the imperative necessity, is an awful reverence
for moral right, a downright determination to clear
the soul and life of works of darkness, to walk in
the light as children of the light.

It has been thus in history. It ought to be the
same in the changes which are wrought in our little
lives when fresh aspects of ancient truths break like
the dawn upon us. Things have gone in such a way
with us that we feel upon the verge of a new world
of work and thought. Over a landscape within
which has been troublous and dark the clouds
begin to lift, and our soul prophesies the sun-
light. Religious doctrines, which have locked up
our soul in frost, loosen in the coming warmth of

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

a higher view of God and life. Our inner life at all
these changes begins to thrill, to move like the heart
of the folded flowers when first the west wind blows.
It is a call for preparation. Within you, it is like
Palestine before Jesus began to preach ; dim excite-
ment, passionate longing, or wild expectation. Let
all the eagerness be not only the eagerness of hope !
Let it also be the eagerness of action. Hear the voice
of the Baptist : '' Repent, since a kingdom of heaven
is at hand for you. Prepare the way of the Lord
in your soul. Make the inward paths straight. Get
life clear of wrongdoing."

Else, if the new life come while the old life is
still encumbered with unrepented joys of the world
and the flesh, the higher thought, dragged down
by the evil temper of the soul, may be unable to
sustain itself, or the new passion in the heart become
the minister to loose morality. Then, alas, the glory
dies, the revelation tums^ to thick darkness, the
experience of triumph and joy is the beginning of
fresh failure and sorrow. "Cast away the works
of darkness," that is the first Advent cry of prepara-
tion, the first demand of God, the first absolute
necessity for being able to see and keep the light.
The demand is not as yet a demand for holiness, not
as yet to pursue after the ideal aim of Jesus, but

it is to clean your soul, to make ready in the desert

THE ARMOUR OF GOD

in which you are living a clear highway down which
God may come to you in revelation.

There are those who know they are doing wrong,
who will not let loose their sin, yet whose intellect,
imagination and easy fervour run to meet a higher
view of life and of religion. The downright truth
about them is that unless they banish the dark thing,
root it out and cast it from them, they may see the
light but will not keep it ; may touch it and yet turn
it into corruption. We must give up what we know
to be sin. Then, when the kingdom of God opens
before us, we can not only enter into it, but abide
in it.

When that is done, the next step is possible, the
putting on of the armour of light. The inspiration
has come to us; new thought, and aims, and
emotions; new views of God, new views of man,
new motives in our soul. Good news they are ; a
gospel such as men felt when long oppressed with
sin or with the ceremonial law they heard the voice of
Jesus say : " Follow me in love ; love God for He
loves you; love man for man is the child of God."
We hear, and our heart goes forth to fulfil in life
what we have felt within.

Well, all seems easy then ; we seem indeed to
have already attained. Yet the warfare has but
begun, and we find out that life is not peace with evil,

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

though it be peace within. And the first thing to do
when we have passed over the border of the kingdom
is to put on our armour. There, by the wayside,
just beyond the ridge, is, I picture, a great building
blazing in the light, for its walls are of adamant ; and
in its porch stands Fortitude, leaning on her four-
fold shield, and round her shoulders and drawn over
her square brows, the lion's head and hide. That
Virtue has won her fight, but her sword is still bare in
her hand, and in her shield are the broken spears and
fierce arrows of the enemies she has slain. She is
the image of what we are to be, and of the life we
are to lead. Above her head, over the portal of
the door, in letters of shooting lightning, is written
this verse : " Endure hardness like a good soldier
of Jesus Christ." We pass the porch and enter
the vast hall, and on every side, from end to end,
stand the images of those who have fought most
worthily the good fight of faith, who most nobly
have wrought righteousness; clothed from head to
foot in their panoply of light. This is the armoury
of the invincible knights of Jesus Christ. We
look on them and take courage and pray that we
may be made fit for their inheritance. And as we
pray. One comes, bearing our armour — for all the
armour of each of us is stored in the great side-
chapels of the hall — and fits it on, and tells us of the

THE ARMOUR OF GOD

work which we must do with it, defensive and
offensive. As we listen to His soft, courageous
voice, which while it thrills our h^art, strengthens
our will, we know that we are not called to ease, but
to hardness ; not to slumber, but to waking through
the night and day of life ; not to a sentiment of
Christ, but to follow in His steps, with the Cross on
the shoulder and the sword drawn and the soul
alert to carry on the battle that He fought with sin
and death and hell ; and His last words to us are
these, clear in their statement of trial, undeceiving
in their severe truth, but ending with encouragement
and certainty of victory : *' In this world ye shall
have tribulation, but be of good cheer : I have over-
come the world." Then we pass forth, and as we
go down the steps. Fortitude smiles and bids us
good speed; and out of a lowly cottage near the
great steps, there runs a little child and takes our
hand, and looking into our eyes, says softly : " Keep
me with you all along the way, in every battle and
in every peace. I am the lowly love, the grace of
Jesus Christ."

So we begin the Christian life. The land over
which we have to march and to contend lies before
us in the morning light. It will be no easy task to win
it through. We know, now that we are armed, that
it will be one long battle-field, but that the foes

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

and the fighting will lessen in proportion as the
battles have been nobly and strictly fought, until at
the end there will be nothing left to conquer. To be a
good soldier, as Christ was, that is our business, our
steady joy, our glorious calling; and well was St.
Paul inspired, when, borne by his spiritual passion
into noble imagery, he described in the Epistle to
the Ephesians the panoply of the Christian warrior,
piece after piece of the divinely tempered armour,
from the helmet to the sandals, from the shield
to the sword ; defensive and offensive for the
sake of the great causes dear to God and dear
to man. " Having your loins girt about with
truth, and having on the breastplate of righteous-
ness, and your feet shod with the preparation
of the Gospel of peace : above all, taking the
shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench
all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the
helmet of salvation — * and for a helmet, the hope of
salvation ' — and the sword of the Spirit, which is the
Word of God."

" Stand therefore," he cries, for if half our life be
marching on when the battle is over, half our life is
also standing and withstanding in battle ; stand there-
fore, having girt your loins with Truth. There, in the
midst of the body, is the strength of a man, woven
in and out in knitted muscle and sinew ; strength to

THE ARMOUR OF GOD

withstand in wrestling, strength to hold to the
ground, strength to heave and overthrow, strength
to pursue and overtake — and well does the image
represent the power of rigid resistance with which
the life of the soul is to wrestle against the princi-
palities of evil, against the world-rulers of this
darkness — the devilish conceptions which tyrannise
mankind.

It is on the knowledge and conviction of truth
that this strength abides and endures. ''I know
the truth of that for which I fight and stand." It is
a might}' knowledge and it makes might. Truth
round the loins of the spirit, and the certainty of its
certainty, are the lasting power in the battle for
God and man. Failure, to be beaten down in the
fight, ridicule, the scorn and defeat of the world, are,
if we are convinced of truth, only a passing trouble.
**0 mine enemy," we cry, "though I fall I shall
arise. What do I care for the world's cry ; what is
it to me if I die in the battle ? I live again, for the
truth lives." This is the carelessness of the Christian
warrior. ** My life is nothing, my cause is all.
Great truths are my strength. It is true God is my
Father ; it is true my sins are forgiven ; it is true
I shall be at one with God for ever." He who has
girt his loins with these is already conqueror of death

and hell, and his march is over vanquished lies.

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

Then round his breast where his heart lies, the
source of imagination and of feeling, he binds the
corslet of Righteousness. Yes, the issues of life, the
treasures of pure passion, the loves and sorrows of
life, its lighter affections, its fancies and dreams,
its ideals and their poetry — these, above all, need
guarding by righteousness. They are so beautiful
that our greatest danger lies in their false allure-
ments. The light that leads astray seems light from
heaven. There is but one protection against the
attack of evil on them. It is strict righteousness,
clasped close and mightily riveted around the heart.

And for the head, where thought abides and
weaves its web; where plans of battle, means of
conquest, theories of action, forms of work, are made ;
where Will commands, organises and directs all powers
to an end ; where conscience analyses and compares
— what helmet suits it best? The helmet of the
Hope of salvation ! Plans fail ; measures are foiled ;
theories are dispersed by experience ; forms of work
are impermanent ; the organised force of will breaks
down ; the analysis of conscience does not meet, as
we hoped, the difficulties of right and wrong ; and
then, after these failures, comes the attack of the
deadly phantom, despair— of the forerunner of
despair, despondence. The defence against these
evil ones is the helmet, the hope of salvation. It is

THE ARMOUR OF GOD

2l hope which does not make ashamed ; that is, it does
not fail to realise itself. In spite of failures, the life
of love and righteousness is saved by this hope. The
plans of life, the ideas we loved, the organised work
of our will, may be defeated, but the things behind
them, those glorious objects for which we made
them — these are saved, they are incapable of de-
struction. And out of this conviction so mighty a
hope is redoubled, that we pass with unbroken spirit
out of every failure, and reorganise life with even
greater freshness than before. We are saved by hope.

One more defence is ours, one more defensive
piece of armour. It is the shield of Faith. For, as
we move through life, we move through an arrow-
storm of doubts of God. From the evil we see in
nature and in man, from our own deep fears, from
the cares and sorrows of our life, from the tempta-
tions which beset us, from the woeful thoughts of
other men, from the misery of the whole world—
the fiery darts of mockery of God, of doubts of His
being, of suspicion of His love, of anger with the
course of things, are shot against our heart and
head.

The guard of life against these is trust in God,

the shield of faith. " Whatever happens," we say,

* He must be just and right. I will believe in Him

against all proof to the contrary. I will hold to

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

Him, though He seem to slay me with pain. I will
trust His love and righteousness against all the
misery of mankind. He is our Father ; He will, He
must redeem His children."

This is the true defence of life. On that shield
the suspicions of God which burn into us from
without, and which by their torment would render
active goodness in daily work impossible, are extin-
guished. From its noble round fall harmless to the
earth the worst of the adders of war, the inward
doubts which make us idle and nerveless in our
fighting. They stab at us, crying, " You will never
attain to God; you will never know the love of
Christ ; you will never conquer that sin, never reach
your aim, never pass through this trial. God has
forsaken you. Give up the strife." " I will not
give up," we answer; "I believe in God. If I say
to this mountain of woe or sin — Be thou removed
and cast into the sea, it will obey me."

This, then, is the defensive armour with which we
set out to follow the fighting of Jesus over the world.
We have cast away the works of darkness ; we have
entered the kingdom ; we are armed ; and now lying
before us is the world of men, and beyond, the
heavenly city of the soul. But before we reach its
shining walls there is many a weary tramp for us
through deserts of trouble and pain. Many are the

THE ARMOUR OF GOD

long nights we must outwatch against the surprises
of sin ; many the sudden combats we shall have to
wage with the forces of the world that lurk in

thievish ways. And, at times, in a solemn crisis of

life, we must fight a pitched battle, continued for
days, against the enemies of God and man. Some-
times we conquer, sometimes we meet a 'sore defeat,
often we are left wounded nigh to death upon the
field. After conquest or defeat, we rest ; sleeping in
the hollow of our shield of faith, and our sword, that
has life in itself, whirling and flashing round our
slumber as its guard. But always it is war — war
with wrong, war with falsehood, war with injustice,
war with luxury, war with scorn, war with every
force which divides instead of uniting man. And in
ourselves, war with unrighteous thought and with
feeble passions.

This is the life to which we are called to-day.
Therefore, let us cast off the works of darkness, and
let us put on the armour of light.

THE ARMOUR OF GOD

And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel

of peace, , . , And take the sword of the Spirit which is

the Word of God.

Ephesians vi. 15, 17

WHEN in the ** Faerie Queene," Prince Arthur,
who is the image of the Magnificence, that
is, of the Great-Doing of the Christian wamor,
rides forth on adventure, that which Spenser dwells
on most is the dazzling brilliancy of his armour.
The earth, as he passes, is illuminated with the
show of it. But the symbol which St. Paul uses
here, of the " armour of light," is concentrated by
Spenser in the shield of the Prince. It is hewn out
of solid diamond, and is so bright that it is covered
up, lest it should flash into blindness all mortal eyes.
Only rarely, and when the fight with the monsters
of evil is greatest, is the covering let slip, and then
it dazes the courage, confounds the mind, and blinds

the eyes of the wicked ones, so that they fall an

17 B

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

easy prey to Arthur's puissant sword. It was thus
in the terrible battle he waged with the two most
powerful sources of wrong and ruin, with giant Pride,
and the Falsehood that wears the mask of Truth —
with Orgoglio and Duessa.

The manifestation of light is then enough to over-
come and destroy darkness. This is the full result
and use of the Christian armour; this makes the
duty of its wearer to carry it into darkness. There
are portions of it which are only defensive, the
helmet, the shield, the breastplate, the girdle of the
loins — ^hope, faith, righteousness, and truth ; but
these are offensive also ; they pour forth light upon
the darkness. Therefore the finest weapon of
offence against evil is the whole of the armour, the
light which shines from it — the manifestation in life
of righteousness, faith, hope, truth, glad tidings of
peace, the flashing in all that we say and shape of
the Word, of the truth of God, of the sword of the
spirit. These are spiritual arms; the true battle
then is never waged with the weapons of the world.

Our habit, only too often, is to attack moral and
intellectual evil with tvil means, with violent words,
with bitter denunciation, even with the material
sword ; with imprisonments and laws created for the
occasion, or with their equivalents of persecution in
domestic or social life.

THE ARMOUR OF GOD

This is to use evil to overcome evil, and the result
is the increasing of evil. We shall never set up the
kingdom of God with the means of the devil, and yet
it is what the whole of the Christian world is inces-
santly and blindly trying to do. When we denounce
evil with violent words, the root of our violence is
some evil thing in ourselvies. Below our desire to
overthrow evil lies pride in our fine denunciation of it.
Sometimes it is envy of the success of evil, and of the
pleasure that it gives to the senses of others, which
sharpens our tongue. Sometimes jealousy is at the
root of our wrath with our neighbour's wrong-doing ;
jealousy which makes us believe that we are just
when we are only mean ; jealousy which, once
admitted to our company, tears every piece of our
Christian armour off, and having made us naked,
sits on our breast and gnaws our heart with teeth
of fire. These are personal ways of doing the wrong
of meeting evil with evil ; but the wrong is worse in
its results when it is done by communities ; by a
Church, by religious assemblies, by a whole profes-
sion, by the Press, by Governments, by kings and
priests combined to persecute. If the thing they
persecute be good, they ruin their own souls ; if it
be evil/they increase its evil. At every point, think-
ing to establish the kingdom of God, they develop
the kingdom of the devil.

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

The true way to meet any evil is to manifest the
opposite of it in your life, to shine upon it with the
light of righteousness and love. If you wish to
weaken and overthrow pride in men or in your
friends, be yourself clothed with humility. If you
would destroy a lie, make clear in your whole
character the truth which contradicts it. If you
wish to do away with injuriousness, let forgiveness
glow within you. If you wish to conquer despair
in your friend, let incessant hope brighten in your
eyes and be eloquent upon your tongue. Do not
denounce, shine forth. March forward, all illumina-
tion, being and doing the things of faith and
righteousness, hope and joy, of peace and truth.

When we can thus shine, the caverns of dark-
ness are filled with light. Then the creatures who
live in them are revealed as they are, shapes of in-
famy and loathing. The world sees them clearly and
is horrified. They blink upon the light, dragged
out of their holes and corners by it, and fall blind
and die. The caverns themselves are rent asunder.
The light of our armour shatters their roof ; it has
seemed to be rock, it is nothing but foul cloud and
thickened gloom. God's glory in us pours into the
hollow dark, and in days to come the place of monsters
is changed into a valley of sweet waters. There

the flowers of love and goodness grow, and men and

THE ARMOUR OF GOD

women walk in peace and joy. This is, then, part of
the Christian war. Ye are of the light, walk as
children of the light.

Two other parts of the armour yet remain; the
sandals and the sword. The first of these is the
readiness to bring the glad tidings of peace ; the
flying sandals symbolise the swift and ardent joy
with which the warrior of Christ proclaims the
Gospel of the Peace-maker. No slothful person is
he, no crawler on the way, but one who has shoes
of readiness, winged on his message like Perseus,
swift to work ; ardent with joy, for without ardour
no great labour is accomplished, no battle fought
out to the close. Nor is the ardour that sombre
ardour which burns like dark fire in those who fight
with life in hopeless unbelief of the triumph of the
good for which they contend — the unhappy yet noble
lot of many in these days — but the enchanted fervour
which is born of carrying glad tidings, and which
fills the bringer of them with gladness.

In a world which, when it is in earnest has the
custom of mournfulness, and when it is joyous has
the custom of frivolity, it is the gracious duty of the
Christian man to be serious without dark sorrow, to
be joyous without losing earnestness. The groaning
prophet, the grim-visaged puritan, the creatures who
think that repentance means the torture of remorse,

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

and who menace those they preach to with eternal
woe, as if that were glad tidings of peace — are not
wearing the sandals St. Paul puts upon the feet of
the Christian warrior, for these are winged with glad
tidings, and the joy of faith and love smiles upon
the face of their wearer. And, in truth, the message
of God's love and man's redemption, of conquest of
life and of immortal life, is so glorious that he who
believes it cannot but think of the message more
than of himself. And to lose himself is joy. In the
pleasure of what he tells his own pain is forgotten ;
and far beyond the trouble of men he sees the eternal
rapture they shall have in likeness to God. Re-
joicing himself, he makes others rejoice. Ardent
himself, he brings ardour to a languid world. It is
part of his battle with evil. Of all the weapons we
wield against wrong there is none more effective
than pure and burning joy.

And we are glad because the glad tidings are of
peace. It is the one thing we want in a world
which is diseased with restlessness and variance.
Only too well we know what it is to be at anarchy
within — desires of good contending with desires of
evil ; the will dragged hither and thither by battling
motives ; the spirit fighting with the flesh, now
overcoming, now being overcome ; good exaggerated
into wrong, or weakness hurried into it ; the heart

THE ARMOUR OF GOD

made into the battle-field of love against the false
forms of love — that which we would, we do not, and
that which we would not, that we do. Earthly wars
make a great noise, but if we could unveil the battle in
the souls of men, and hear the inconceivable sound
of it, the very music of the spheres would be hushed
in the roaring of the contest.

To that, if we do our duty rightly, we are bound
to bring the glad tidings of peace, and there is but one
root of peace. It is to have the will of God as the
master of our will ; to have one desire alone, to do
His will ; one aim only, to live in obedience to God's
righteousness. For then, under one ruler, all our
powers, subordinated each to his own place and
w^ork, go forward like a disciplined army to one
conquest. This is peace, the peace of harmony ;
and, when we are at last tired of being torn to pieces
within by incessant revolutions, there is no tidings
in the world so glad as this which we hear from
Christ : " Come unto me, all ye who are weary and
heavy laden, and I will give you rest.**

But that is but a part of the peace we have to
proclaim with readiness. We have to tell the tale
of God no longer represented as the enemy but as
the lover of man ; and by that tale of love to recon-
cile man to God. We have to lead men, understand-
ing that God is Love, to turn to Him with longing ;

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

for who can be at enmity with one whom he believes
to love him? We war against God because we
think He is unjust and cruel to us, angry with the
children He ought to love. But when we know that
He loves us even when we are sinners, that He will
never leave us till we are at one with His goodness,
our war with Him is closed. Peace falls like dew
upon the spirit.

We have to bring this tidings of love to nations
hating one another: to classes at war with one
another, to friends that have been sundered, to
the injurer and the injured. " Surrender your dull
scorn," we cry, "of one another; cease to revenge
yourselves ; be pitiful, be courteous ; consider your
enemy's feeling more than your own ; do him good
when most he does you evil ; yield the points to him
which do not involve duty to righteousness; cast
your pride into the deepest abyss; forget now the
wrong that you have suffered ; seek out the good in
your foes, bring it into light and proclaim it to the
world ; abandon your own justification and the
retorting accusations on which you found it. Thus,
bringing into all the wars of earth loving-kindness,
belief in good and endurance of wrong in that belief,
your whole life will be the active proclamation of
the gospel of peace. There is nothing which will
lead you into closer fellowship to the Captain of

THE ARMOUR OF GOD

your warfare, Jesus Christ. There is no deadlier
weapon than this publishing of peace in the hands
of a Christian warrior. Evil falls before it more
hopelessly than even before the sword of the spirit.
Take up this part of your great warfare. ** How
beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him
that bringeth glad tidings, that publisheth peace."

At last, we meet with the actual weapon of the
armour — the sword of the spirit which is the Word
of God ; and the Word of God means the whole
Thought of God ; all the divine ideas expressed in
speech or writing by men. It is all the true, just,
loving, wise and beautiful truths, which, derived from
God, have been seized by men since the beginning
of the world ; the primary truths which have been
arrived at in science, in art, in law, in morals and in
religion. These are the Word of God among men.
And whenever it goes forth, wherever it is proclaimed,
it acts like a sword and leads the war. Every mighty
truth rouses the falsehood which it contradicts
against it ; and war is declared in the realm to which
the truth belongs — in the realms of science, art or
religion. Day by day it defends its position against
these falsehoods; day by day it slays the host of
them, nor is it ever sheathed until they are all
destroyed. This is its spiritual, immaterial war. It

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

is the sword of God's thought, of His truth, His
beauty, of His righteousness, aud of His love.

" It is quick and powerful," says the writer of the
Epistle to the Hebrews. Truth is alive, and cannot
lose its vital power. Where it lives, there is energy.
Life, as power, spreads from it. Take, for example,
this one saying of Jesus Christ, embodying the truth
that rules the whole spiritual world. ** Whosoever
shall lose his life, the same shall find it"! Think
of the incessant changing life, in a million varied
souls, of this Word of God ; think of its kindling
power, its persistent energy in the life of the whole
world. Thought fails and imagination drops her
wing before they can realise the thousandth part of
the work done by such a sword of the spirit. And
this, which is true of a spiritual truth, is equally
true of a scientific, of a moral, of an artistic truth.
These Words of God are sources of life, energies

•

which must act, swords which hew down the false-

hoods that oppose them. The sword St. Paul spoke

of was a sword of the spirit, but there are swords of

the intellect, swords of the conscience, swords of the

imagination, and they too are the Word of God.

Sharp, piercing, and dividing also is the sword

of any truth. It goes home to the roots of things,

cleaving its way straight through all deceit to the

actual realities of life; piercing through the very

THE ARMOUR OF GOD

joints and marrow of lies ; till men know, in its keen
and sudden stroke, the vanity and vileness in which
they have been living ; and the trickeries of casuistry
and sophistry are separated from the lie and leave
it naked and forlorn. It discerns and divides the
thoughts of the heart of man — separates motive from
motive, feeling from feeling, argument from argument ;
forces each to stand aside, reveals each exactly for
what it is. Then we see clear at last. All the
mingling of good and evil, of true and false, of ugliness
and beauty — in which the clear lines of right and
wrong, of loving and unloving, of fair and foul, are
involved and blurred ; a mixture and confusion which
is the very condition of wrong doing and wrong
thinking and wrong feeling — is utterly put an end to.
We know things as they are, and we can choose our
way clearly. This is the dividing of the sword, of
any Word of God ; and there is nothing which is ot
greater use in the war with evil.

Therefore get your swords ; find truths — in science,
art, politics and religion. Find the Words of God.
And when you have got them, gird them on, draw
them in the battle God has ordained, wield them
for the sake of the progress and salvation of man-
kind. Be master of their management. Slay with
them the falsehoods of the world ; defend with them

those whom the falsehoods oppress ; pierce with

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

them the hearts of men, dividing the evil from the

goodj separate with them the false from the true,

that men may be able to see and choose the right.

Let them flash in the forefront of the fight. Let

them above all flash and pierce, slay and sift in yom*

own heart, till in its cities and its country nothing

lives which is not true and pure, beautiful and just,

clear in thought, and loving in feeling I For you

are not worthy to wield the sword of the spirit in

the outward world, unless you are wielding it day

by day against the spiritual enemies of your own

soul.

Then, we are fit to use our sword of God's spiritual

Truth to slay the evil and defend the good* The

blade of that sword is welded of many truths, the

spiritual Word of God of many words of God ; and

these are some of them — God is one, and God is

love. Every soul is His child and destined to glorify

Him for ever. Sin is forgiven. New life is opened

to repentance. The lost are always sought by the

great Shepherd till He find them. Holiness is to be

won and must be won. Love is to be the master

of all action. Men are brothers of one another in

their universal childhood to the Father. Jesus,

because He loved the most, is the leader of our

life and warfare. He is with us to the end of the

world and we shall live with His Father for ever

THE ARMOUR OF GOD

Immortaltiy with God is the certainty of certainties,
and we ought to live in it now. There is no real
death in the world. The race of man is destined to
everlasting joy in everlasting love. These are the
bars of spiritual steel which forged together make
the sword of the teacher of the Gospel, of the lover
of Jesus Christ.

So then the Christian warrior is fully equipped
with his armour. Helmet, breastplate, girdling coat
of mail, shield, sandals and sword clothe him now.
Let him go forth to do his duty. But why speak so
impersonally ? It is ourselves who are to cast off
the works of darkness, ourselves who are to be
armed for God and man. The battle is set in array
before us now ; now the onset sounds, now we see
the host of darkness. Draw the sword of the spirit,
lift the shield of faith, be swift and ardent of foot,
bear breastplate and helm into the thick of the
battle. Ught manfully under the banner of Christ
against sin, the world, and the flesh ; continue His
faithful soldier and servant unto your life's end.

Ill

THE ARMOUR OF GOD

Praying always with all prayer and supplication in
the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance,

Ephesians vi. i8

THE noble passage, noble in the judgment of liter-
ature as well as of religion, in which St. Paul
calls on the Christian warrior to stand against the evil,
to endue the full armour of God, and to follow Jesus
Christ to battle, is a splendid cry to arms. We
seem to hear in its high trumpet-note the clear echo
of even a greater cry — "Behold, the Bridegroom
Cometh, go ye forth to meet him ; " and the martial
and exultant music ought, at this Advent time, to
send us forth, with solemn joy, armed with the whole
armour of God, to fight the good fight of faith.

But these hours of high resolve are succeeded by
hours of sadness, even of defeat ; and the Bride-
groom delays his coming. Well did St. Paul know
these hours of depression. Well did he know how

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

long, how desperate sometimes was the fight. And the
knowledge made him add my text to his description
of the Christian armour. To meet this weariness,
sorrow, or despair, he added three more things, ex-
pressed in his peculiar interweaving fashion, to the
equipment of the soldier of Christ — Patience, Prayer,
and Watchfulness, and these describe the temper of
the soldier's mind within his armour.

(i) Patience is the perseverance of the warriors
of God ; the steady holding on to the march and
the battle ; faithfulness to the cause of Christ through
life to death ; steadfastness in withstanding evil in
one's-self, and in the world. In youth, the battle we
have to fight is at first like an easy march through
our enemy's country. Our self-will, that evil foe
within, would fain deceive us into sloth and careless-
ness, into the belief that he is not an enemy at all.
Softly he whispers, " You may as well make peace
with me, I am not so bad as the good people say."
When we listen to that voice, the wild curiosity of
youth awakens, and our desire is no longer to fight
against wrong, but to yield to it, because it is so
pleasant and so unknown. And then youth has so
much of eagerness and passion that they throw a
glamour over wrong in which it seems delightful.
Evil is veiled, or concealed, or seems to be good.
The country through which our youthful marching

THE ARMOUR OF GOD

lies is fair and gentle. Soft meadows and sweet
waters; places for sleep and dreaming; sunny
rivers down which we drift from reach to reach when
the will is slumbering ; tents by the fringes of the
singing woods where young love attracts us into
full devotion ; amusement, excitements, dances and
games, which seem innocent as the morning and
which indeed are innocent enough, unless we forget
in them that we are soldiers of God against the
evil, and that our march is onward to an unseen
goal. Enjoy them all, but remember. Remember
you are not your own. God claims you for mankind.
Then you pass into the world of men, and a new
temptation rises. The cities on your march open
their gates to you, welcome you as citizens, offer
you business to gain wealth, tell you of place and
honour to be won. And their oifers may be ac-
cepted, provided that you keep your armour on.
But if they induce you, in order to gain these results
more quickly, to lay aside your breastplate of in-
ward righteousness, of outward justice to your fellow
men, to palter with truth, to violate your love of
God's character, and of men — they induce you to
desert the army of God and to betray your master
Jesus. Do your business, but in your armour. Fight
in your daily work for the character of God. Pro-
claim its rightful rule in your profession, in your

33 c

rt^

^ las

: :t r^e

THE ARMOUR OF GOD

be content with this world ; forget this high

n which forbids your material success ; be

■ e a pilgrim of the invisible beauty, a seeker

I's perfection ! Why seek a city to come ?

- your city, and it is all." It is not all, and

t your true dwelling-place. Your All is only

in the infinite life of God, in union with your

Your city is not in these shadows, but in the

ice of God's everlasting love, whose warfare

ikind you wage on earth. That is the true

human life, and its splendour and beauty are

it that it should make patient perseverance

-doing, fervent prayer and faithful watching,

> the warrior of God.

, then, is the perseverance of youth. But
ve have gone through the battles that belong
h, the manner of our warfare often changes.
e no longer seduced by ease, or enthralled by
nto forgetfulness. We are rather worn out
d labour or battered by trouble. The aspect
country of life changes. Long roads of mono-
labour tire the eye and heart. No light, no
akes the march easy. Day after day is the
and we have now to contend with apathy, with
:iess of work. Or, not monotony, but dreadful
e comes upon us. We have to cross the thirsty
of bitter sorrow, or treacherous disillusion

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

We lose the love which made our way dear to us ;
we are betrayed ; we are whirled into poverty out of
wealth ; we make a host of enemies by being faithful
to our cause ; — many are the troubles of middle age.
This is the central struggle of life ; the valley of the
shadow of death. There, as Bunyan pictured it in
his allegory, Apollyon, the Destroyer, seems to meet
us face to face. Well, in this grim battle, where
faith in a God of love is tried to the utmost, the
question is — " Shall we answer bravely to the
ancient battle-cry, ' Endure hardness, like a good
soldier of Jesus Christ ; * and even at the last gasp of
strength, keep the shield of faith steadily over our
fallen life ; and hear, like a wind humming in the
hollow of it, the voice of our own soul in its stead-
fast perseverance : * I know whom I have believed,
and am confident that He will keep that which I have
committed to Him against that day ' ? If that be our
faithful voice, the dark valley will open into light ;
the evil thing which bade us deny the love of God
because of hfe's passing misery, vanishes away. No
temptation can endure faith in the love of God. We
emerge victorious from the central trouble of life
with all our armour brighter for the contest ; emerge
to live more closely with God, more lovingly with
our brother men.

When we have thus conquered in the mid-battle of

THE ARMOUR OF GOD

life, another struggle waits us often in our later years.
We come in life's journey to the great and snow-
crowned range of truth, on whose peaks is the certain
conviction of truth. The effort to grasp spiritual
truth fully and clearly is often the silent warfare of
that time of life in which the press of manhood's
work has ceased. Sometimes this is the hardest
fight of all, the longest trial of endurance. For the
way is often through sunless gorges, and the heights
of truth seem inaccessible. But now we are strong
enough to feel that we will not give up our climbing.
Therefore, clasping the shield of faith close to the
breast, and closer on the head the helm of the hope
of salvation, we make, always upward, our painful
way, and come at last among the icy slopes below the
summits. There, at least, the air is pure ; there, at
least, we see the peaks of the great Truths clear, and
above them the blue, unclouded sky of God's love
into which the great Truths always rise. Earth with
all its doubts is far below us now. We know God is
our Father, and that men His children are our
brothers. We know we are immortal in Him, and
that He is immortal in us and in all men ; and we
need to know no more. Our manhood's warfare is
accomplished.

There is yet more to do and more to receive, but
our patience in old age is not battle ; it is rather the

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

veterans waiting for his call to go up higher. As
he waits, he loves men better ; he cheers the young,
he speaks comfort to the middle-aged ; he tells the
warriors what is transient and what is eternal. And
within, his soul deepens into finer and greater power ;
his prayer is nearer to communion with God and
further from petition to God ; his watchfulness for
new revelation is more eager than before. This
proof of the intensity of immortality is afforded him
— that as his outward man decays his inward man
is renewed more and more. And the battle of the
past has now changed into spiritual power; power
of growing faith and of deepening love ; power of
consolation. Every misery of his past warfare has
brought forth a fruit of joy. The light his armour
throws on wrong is tenfold now. The fame of hope
from his helmet's crest shines unweariedly; wings
grow upon the sandals which bear him on to tell with
ready eagerness all the good news of God to man. In
the weakness of old age he is upborne to the top-
most peaks of truth ; and stands upon them as the
hour of death draws near, certain of God's father-
hood and of man's salvation. It is a solitary hour,
but he is not alone. The Father is with him. He
stretches out his hands to the sky in thankfulness
and joy, in absolute peace. " Mighty Father, now
take thy servant home. I have fought the good

THE ARMOUR OF GOD

fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the
faith."

This is the result of that perseverance of fortitude
which St. Paul meant by patience. It is an active,
not a passive quality. There are those who think
it is Christian patience to sit down by the wayside
to endure the storm, crying in themselves, " God is
hard on me, but I will bear His smiting ; " but their
endurance is only idleness which is ignoble, and
hiding from the battle which is cowardice. Or they
cry, " I am the victim of Fate, but I will be patient "
— as if any one could be a victim if God be love, or
as if there were such a thing as blind fate, when the
order of the world is to lead men into righteousness ;
when to be victor and not victim is the main word
of that order. No, the severity of the battle is to
force us into self-forgetfulness ; and this lazy re-
signation, this wailing patience, is mere self-re-
membrance. The true patience is activity of faith and
hope and righteousness in the cause of men for the
sake of God's love of them ; is in glad proclamation
of the gospel ; is in wielding the sword of the Truth
of God against all that injures mankind.

To blame God for the hard fighting He asks
from us is unworthy of warriors ; to thank Him
for it is to look like true men on our warfare.
On the contrary, to have from God a hard battle

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

to fight is to have a God worth serving ; not one
who does all things for us and leaves us weak;
not one who does not care for our progress, but who
bids us win our spurs ; not one who makes us good
despotically and pauperises our spirit with gifts of
righteousness for which we do not work, but one
who loves our individual independence as citizens of
the heavenly kingdom and bids us win full citizen-
ship at the point of the sword ; not one who says,
** Labour for yourself, save your own soul," but one
who says, " Win your victory, win union with me by
living for men, my children, and by fighting their
battle. Save your fellows from evil ; that is the way
to save yourself. Die for them ; that is the way to
attain my life." This is a God worth a woman's
loving, worth a man's worship, honour, and battle.
The hardships He calls us to endure in patient
fighting are to be met and loved ; and their end is
not a weak death by the wayside in base resignation,
but the crown and glory of veteranship, the cross of
honour on the breast, and the voice of Jesus crying
in our ears, " Well done, good and faithful servant."
This is the patience and perseverance of the soldier
of Christ.

(2) I need not say so much on Prayer, for all
God's soldiers know its power. But in this warfare
we need that which will keep our armour bright,

THE ARMOUR OF GOD

and that which makes it luminous is prayer. Not
prayer as petition, but prayer as conscious com-
munion with our Father. It is a mighty strength
for life, a mighty power in the soul of man to be
able to say — ** God my Father is within me. I am
His and He is mine. I speak with Him, He speaks
with me."

There is a majesty not of earth which raises
us beyond the whole power of the world to over-
come us. It is the majesty of knowing that we
are walking hand in hand with immortal love and
goodness. To be conscious of that always, to be in
hourly speech with God, to have His thought moving
through our thought, our love acting in His love —
that is the prayer which needs no form of words
nor bending of the knees, but which is the very
breath and blood of our spiritual being. It sharpens
the sword of the spirit ; it wings the shoes of our
gladness in prophesying the good news of forgive-
ness and of peace ; it knits truth closer round the
loins of our life ; it braces the shield of faith on the
arm ; it strengthens the breastplate of righteousness ;
it makes the helmet of hope glitter like the sun ; and
it doubles the dazzling brightness of them all.

Take then prayer with you in your battle — for
yourself as communion with God, but rarely for
yourself as petition. Take it rather as petition for

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

Others. You may easily go wrong when you ask
for yourself. You cannot go wrong when you ask
for others. Our armour is tenfold more effective in
our warfare when we have forgotten our own. wants
in passionate prayer to God to strengthen our fellow
warriors in the fight, to bring them to peace through
destruction of wrong. We are often happy in full
communion with God, but I think it is when we
have lost sight of our personal joy through all-
absorbing sympathy for men, when our battle is not
for our own joy but for the joy of our brothers in
Christ Jesus, that we reach a higher happiness, a
deeper personal communion with God. We gain it
most when most we seem to give it up, when most
we forget ourselves. So felt the great warrior who
taught us to pray aright. "For their sakes," He
cried, " I sanctify myself."

(3) The final thing is Watchfulness, and of this
there are many kinds. There is the watchfulness
which, in the midst of our warfare, we keep against
the surprises of evil. We ought to have the habit
of sending forward certain faculties, as it were on
the scout, to provide means of righteous action in
the difficulties which we foresee in life. We ought
to find out beforehand the dangers which lurk in
matters that call for prompt decision ; we ought
to know beforehand what enemies our duty to God

THE ARMOUR OF GOD

and man may encounter, what ambush of wrong
may lie hid in that which seems innocent. We
ought to be prepared for quick decision, for im-
mediate action in the battle. This is the counsel
of Christian prudence which Jesus gave in parable
after parable to His disciples. Watch, and be ready
for a crisis. We know not when the days of judg-
ment come in life, when we are called on to choose
whom we will serve — God or Baal, man or our
own self-interest. Make the soul ready beforehand.

It is not that we should fall into the habit of over-
care, so as to weight our years with self-tormenting
dread, for that would dim the shield of faith — but
that our loins should be always girded and our
lights burning, so that when evil threatens suddenly,
or God calls us to swift decision for Him, we may
have that presence of mind, that clear sight of the
right thing to say and do, which are the victorious
elements in spiritual courage. This is a part of
watchfulness.

Another part is to set a guard over our soul
and the powers which live within it, so as to keep
them up to the mark. It is as if in the midst of
the land of the inner life there rose a high watch-
tower, and that around it lay upon the plain, in
their encampment, the faculties and the passions,
the fancies and moods of our character, all the

THE GOSPEL OF JO Y

inward army of a man — and among them the
high powers of the soul, abiding in their tents,
or moving through the army, commanding and
forbidding, like wise leaders of the host. But
one captain among them watches on the tower-top,
and surveys the army outspread below. Some
of our virtues may sleep too long; some of them
may be careless of their armour ; some who are
sentinels may dream upon their post ; some powers,
like the appetites, may run riot and disarray
the camp ; some, like the passions, may be seduced
into evil ; some, like the fancies, may wander beyond
bounds. Even the great generals — imagination,
conscience, intelligence, love, the will — may slumber
in their tents, or neglect to array and discipline their
soldiers, or indulge in folly or in sin. Then from
the tower battlement the watcher calls his warning
note ; the army of the soul hears the call ; the
virtues wake from sleep, the Christian graces rush
to arms. Again the soul is disciplined, arrays itself
for war, is set to meet the enemy. That images the
watchfulness which should rule in every soul, the
spirit which answers to that word of Christ —
" Watch and pray, lest ye enter into temptation."

Lastly, there is yet another watchfulness, different
from these, more solitary, even more personal, and
in its personal solitude more impassioned. It is

THE ARMOUR OF GOD

the watchfulness, mingled of hope and faith, for that
fair and divine land which we have not as yet seen,
but in which we have believed, to which we sail
through storm and calm. In the hours of the night —
for so we image those times when apart from the
storm of life we seem to touch the infinite, and
look into the eyes of the perfect — in these hours
when all is still, when the powers of the soul sleep
like the sailors of Columbus, our watchfulness
stands, like Columbus, on the prow of our ship of
life, between the silent stars of the life to come and
the silent waters of the life of earth, looking forth
eagerly. Perhaps, when the morning rises it will
call us to behold the glittering shores ; perhaps to
see the ineffable dawn of our Father's land ; it may
be to behold some new revelation of His truth, some
livelier vision of His beauty.

Only at intervals, when the call of daily duty is
unheard, may we do this ; but it is part of the
watchfulness of the soul, and it is the happy privilege
of age. As we grow more and more old, there are
signs which encourage this special watchfulness.
Sometimes in the dark we " hear a singing-bird
above the topmast tree," and in the waste of waters
the song is full of the consolations of the land, but
not of the lands we know. God has put a song of
immortality into our hearts. Sometimes there passes

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

by our ship of life things that have a strange and
beautiful look, more lovely than we have yet seen —
imaginations which come when we are alone with
nature ; spiritual thrills of the heart which arise,
we know not why, from common events ; moods of
the soul which carry with them unimagined pleasures
— things touched with a loftier spirit of love than
prevails on earth, and which awake in us a mystic
wonder, tell of another country and a better life, and
are to the voyaging soul of us what the carved wood
and the sea-weed and the branch of the unknown
tree were to Cclumbus, as, full of faith in his idea,
he pushed through boundless seas to his desire ; —
messages of God to tell us that our hopes shall be
satisfied, our stormy sailing end in peace. It is the
picture of our Christian watchfulness in the solitary
silences of life ; and happy are we, if, after long
warfare, in the quiet of age we have the blessed
visions of this watchfulness. Farewell, then, and
take these Advent words : Watch and pray ; endure
hardness like a good soldier of Jesus Christ ; quit
you like men ; be strong.

THE CHRISTIAN RACE

Whtftfort seiing we also are compassed about with so
great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weighty
and the sin that doth so easily beset us, and let us run with
patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus.

Hebrews, xi. i

THE equipment of the warrior of Christ has been
our subject and continues to be our subject
on this the last Sunday in Advent. But though the
subject is unchanged, the comparison employed to
illustrate it is now different. The thing remains ;
the aspects in which we look at it are varied.

The writer of this book had seen the races in a
great circus ; the runners naked or accinct for their
running, standing eager at their line ; the cry of the
starter was in his ears as he wrote. Then, with
the intellectual eye, he saw the race, the desperate
struggle at the close, the looks of the ininners fixed
upon the goal where he sat who should allot the
prize, the vast assemblage leaning forward. He
knew how great was their sympathy, their cries of
cheer, the thunder of their applause. Tier after tier

49 D

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

they rose, all watching, and in the deep summer
haze of heat the multitude, no face being distinguish-
able, was like a cloud of men.

He could not see it, think of it, filled as he was
with one thought, one passion, without comparing
the runners to the brethren who were following
Jesus; the seated figure over the great door to
Jesus ; the host of spectators to the cloud of martyrs
of whom he had spoken in the last chapter, who
themselves luid run the race, and who now from
the other world where they had received their crown
looked down with cheering and with sympathy
upon the runners on the earth. Hence sprang this
vivid text. It speaks of patience, of endurance,
and on these we have already dwelt. But of other
matters also, needed for the warfare, or the race, of
the Christian, there is question here. Who wars,
who runs a race, must be clear of encumbrance. All
that weighs down the body, all that besets the path
and harasses the runner, must be got rid of. What-
ever depresses the courage must be banished. Other-
wise the race is heavily run, the runner loses breath
and hope, faints, and gives up the strife.

Temperance then, temperance, the root of training,
is his first need. He that striveth for the mastery
is temperate in all things. Now, temperance means
the restriction within their own fitting limits of the

THE CHRISTIAN RACE

appetites and the senses, and even more, of all the
powers of the intellect and the soul ; the girdle round
them which checks their excess or weakness. If any
one of them, no matter how naturally good it be, is
allowed by us to grow out of tempered proportion with
the others, it prevents these from doing their just
part in life, and it ends by tyrannising over them all.
In the ordered republic of the soul a despotism is
established, and the Christian life is spoiled.

This is plain in the case of the appetites. It is
not so plain, but it is as certain, in the case of the
senses. Take the finest of them in their finest
work. If the desire of gratifying ear or eye with
beauty so increases as to disenable us, by our
passionate pursuit of loveliness in the arts or in
nature, from training the intellect, or, what is more
important, from living in love among our fellow
men; if it isolate us from the common duties of
life ; if it make us forget the claims of the spirit,
and the God who in us makes these claims ; — why
then, intemperance has seized upon the senses. The
powers of the intellect or of the spirit, the powers
of justice and love at work for men are diseased
from want of exercise. The man cannot run his
race nobly or quickly. He has lost more than half
his powers. And his punishment inevitably follows.
He is punished by losing not only the powers he

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

has neglected, but also that power which he indulged
too much. He loses the capacity of seeing the
true beauty. For the love of beauty — divided from
intellectual power, without great matter of thought,
unidealised by the spiritual and moral elements,
isolated in itself, separated from the love of man —
slowly corrupts into false forms and finally dies.
That was its history in Greece ; that was its history
in the Renaissance. It seems its history now.

The same things are true when the powers of the
intellect or of the spirit are intemperately exalted,
and the other powers of the man neglected. When
the powers of reasoning are alone trained by the
man, they are intemperately trained. The senses
are neglected. All that comes through their channel
of beauty is lost. The spiritual faculties, unused,
fall asleep. Such a man even refuses to waste his
time on beauty, and he denies the existence of a
spiritual life. He is but the third of a man.

In the same way, conscience, love of morality,
unbalanced by love of beauty or intelligence, un-
balanced by the love of God and of all as God's
children, becomes intolerant, cruel, fanatic, a love
of denouncing and condemnation, ends in Phari-
saism, or in asceticism, or in the wickedness of
excluding the poor and sinful from the kingdom of
of God. Such a man is maimed.

THE CHRISTIAN RACE

In the same way, when the spiritual faculties
are allowed to override the others, the evil is
equally great. The man not only loses the use of
the senses, he tries to destroy their powers. Not
only does he despise his reason, he cries it down,
he sacrifices it on God's altar, as if the repudiation
of the reason God gives were acceptable to God.
He, too, is maimed. He will have to get back here-
after the powers he has thrown away.

Intemperance, then, by abnormal development of
any one part of our nature, has succeeded in all
these cases in turning a complete man into only
the third or fourth of a man ; and many are the
instances of this among artists, among men of science
or business, among religious or ethical persons.

There is then within no balance and subordination
of the human powers. There is no order, no using of
all the faculties, each to do his own work within his
own range, for one purpose. Harmony of the parts
with the whole, of the whole with the parts, is not
there. Incompleteness following on intemperance
marks these men.

It ought to be very different. Every power ought
to be in full work and training — senses, intellect,
conscience, spirit. Where it is otherwise with us,
temperance has not ruled development. We cannot
run then any race well, above all we cannot speed

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

in the Christian race. We run, but being all on
one side we run off the course. At last we stumble,
over-weighted in one part, and cannot get up again
till we have set to work the neglected powers of
our being. Then our equilibrium is restored, and
again we take up the race. But what a long time
we have lost I O, be temperate in all things, most
of all in the development of your good powers. For
they, intemperately worked, to the neglect of the
other powers of human nature, pass out of the
limits of good into evil, or into the borderland of
evil.

This is the first and general need of the Christian
race — temperate training of all our powers. What
follows is more particular. We are to lay aside
every weight. No runner carries heavy dress, orna-
ments, things which hamper the free movement of
his limbs; and of such burdens there are many in
this world. The first I think of lies on the shoulders
of a large class in our society — the weight of a too
comfortable life. Comfort is good in itself, but
when it is sought and loved as the foremost thing, it
presses the soul to earth. Men lose in it the desire
of progress ; the pursuing passion for ideas ; the hopes
that urged, the faith that inspired, their youth ;
the thoughts that wander through eternity. Satisfied,
they strive, they run, no more ; they hear no more

THE CHRISTIAN RACE

the voice of Jesus, " Follow me. Be ye perfect as
your Father in heaven is perfect."

They hear no more the cries of their brothers caught
in the nets of misery : " Help us, we are perishing."
The curtains of their comfort are fast drawn ; they sit
at home, wrapt in family ease. Outside, the sleet is
falling, the bitter wind is blowing, thousands of the
children of sorrow are dying in the fierce weather.
God Himself is knocking at the door, calling, "Come
forth and seek the lost with Jesus.*' We hear nothing ;
the cotton of comfort stops our ears. For a time, till
God Himself breaks in on us with storm, and disperses
our comfort to the winds, we can run no Christian
race. It is not poverty, or difficulty, which disables
us ; far more is it ease. There was a truth in that
which Gray said in his Elegy :

Chill Penury repressed their noble rage
And froze the genial current of the soul ;

but it is not penury which does this work the most.
It is the opposite of penury. Therefore, lay aside,
not all comfort — men have a right to that — but that
excess of it which softens and enfeebles the soul ;
which sends to sleep the longing for God's perfec-
tion; which makes our life too slothful to follow
Christ, the Healer of the world.

Another weight is the cares of life. We keep so

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

many which we might shake off, that it is more
than pitiful. We encourage fears for our life, our
future, our wealth, till all our days are harassed
out of peace, till the very notion of trust in God is
an absurdity. We waste life away in petty details,
spending infinite trouble on transient things, mag-
nifying the gnats of life into elephants, tormenting
ourselves and others over household disturbances,
children, servants, little losses, foolish presentiments,
our state of health, our finances — till every one
around us is infected with our disease of fret and
worry. This is indeed to weight our soul. Our
life with God, our work for man, are dragged to
earth. We creep, we do not run, to meet our
Master Jesus.

One thing is needful, Christ said, and that one
thing is Love. But this dreary anxiety which has
mastered us is love of self, not of God or man. It
feeds our desire to love ourselves ; it strangles our
desire to love others. Thinking so much of our
own cares, how can we think of the cares of others ?
Indeed, our selfish temper adds a new burden to the
lives of our household, of our friends. We are not
satisfied, in our greedy selfishness, till we have
hampered all our little world with our wailings, with
our demands for sympathy. It is hard to con-
quer this temper, one of the hardest things in the

THE CHRISTIAN RACE

world. But if we wish to run after Christ Jesus it
must be conquered.

Again, these are things that are seen of men,
they lie on the outside ; but within, in the secret
soul, carefully hidden from men — what do you keep
which weighs down your activity for God, which
checks your feet when you wish to help mankind as
Jesus helped them ? Small and petty jealousies
which gnaw away your high endeavour, which eat
the heart out of your ideals and make mean your
imagination; dog-faced memories of injuries done
to you ; monkey vanities which tell you hour by
hour that you are not appreciated at your full value ;
foolish fancies, decked, like the jay, in borrowed
plumes, which you know you never will attain ; self-
deceits which cheat you into following them, till
you are lost in a morass of disappointment or of
shame ; hatreds, envies, false ambitions, ill thoughts
that cluster round forbidden food, like flies round
poison — all silent, all unknown to others, hid in
the locked chambers of the heart, and only God
aware of them-^what of these ? Is there any-
thing which more burdens the Christian runner?
Were they known, could you speak them, they
would die ; you would be ashamed to keep them
for a moment. But cherished as they are, like
vipers in a blanket, they go with you everywhere !

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

When you walk the streets, they are there ; when
you lie down at night, there they are. Even in
your dreams they are your companions. They rise
and mock at you at your work, they attend you into
society. They master and enslave the soul.

They must be banished. Kill them by a fierce
anger with them, starve them out by giving them
no food. Fling them off the shoulders of your life ;
fling them off your heart. Else they will weight
you so dreadfully, that running the race, looking
unto Jesus, will be for years impossible to you.
It would be shameful if only death could emanci-
pate you from these secret shames. Not even death
can do it. Only, after death, your own will, inhabited
by the will of God, armed from head to foot with the
armour of God, can free you in a desperate battle
from these elfish evils. It would be pitiable to take
them with you into that other world. Lay them
aside, and it will seem to you, as you run, as if you
had cast a mountain from your heart.

These are some of the weights of the race, and
perhaps the worst of them.

There is one thing more the writer calls on us to
abandon — " the sin which easily besets us " ; not the
sins of old, before we joined the race. We are
supposed to have abandoned these already ; but the
pleasant little evil we have kept ; which was part of

THE CHRISTIAN RACE

our very being; so natural to us that we have
scarcely thought it sin, that we have often thought
it good ; which we have excused because it was so
like a good thing ; which always comes to our mind
when we are alone ; to which, when it tempts us,
we yield at once ; the habit of years, which to do
is like eating and drinking ; which takes a thousand
disguises, and is our boon companion whenever we
are in good health and happy — the sin which doth
so easily beset us.

We have not been left unwarned of it. Again
and again we have found it out. We have been
shocked, when its mask has fallen, to see its ugliness,
we have eaten its fruits and found them bitter.
But again and again we have shut our eyes; or
forgotten, when it came back in its dainty dress,
that it ever showed so basely. It will not do to
keep it. It will grow till it infect your character
with creeping disease, your work with the trouble
of conscious inability. And to get rid of the trouble
you will cease to strive with it and become its slave.
Moreover, it will introduce the old sins again, for no
one sin ever remains singular. It is ill at ease till it
have its ancient companions ; and some unhappy day
the traitor will open the gates of your soul, and before
you know what has happened, your life will be devas-
tated by guilt which you thought impossible. To

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

dismiss this intimate foe takes resolute uprooting,
but with the grace of God, and bitter prayer, with
long-enduring fortitude, the soul is capable of
desperate effort. ** I can do all things," say to
yourself and act your saying — " through Christ that
strengtheneth me."

And now, after the struggle for temperance,
and the strife in which you have cast away the
weights, and the pain with which you have slain the
sin so dear to you — there comes, to comfort and
to heal you, the joyous sense of a fresh swift-
ness in life, the lightness, the buoyancy of the soul.
It is the first of the three great motives of which
the writer thinks, which urge and, as they urge,
rejoice the Christian runner. Many are the joys of
life, but few are greater than this. It is the joy
of the earth freed from the strangling grasp of
winter; it is the joy of a nation set free from
slavery ; it is the joy of a man when he feels that
disease has gone out of his body. All things
are now done with new delight ; . purer thoughts
make quicker acts; the rush of emotion towards
God and man is restored ; we lose ourselves, and
then the soul runs like an antelope to God. It is
pleasure to feel girt up for the race, weightless, in
full possession of the strength of virtues; able to

use the grace of God ; able with undimmed eyes to

THE CHRISTIAN RACE

see the footsteps of Jesus and to follow them ; able,
whenever a new temptation comes of the old sin,
whenever ease threatens to enfeeble, or cares to
torment, or miserable hauntings of self to burden
life, to shake them off with quickness. The habit
of freeing oneself easily from wrong has been gained,
and once gained we do not lose it. It is wonderful
happiness.

This is the first fruit of our victory, a joyous free-
dom in righteousness. But bitter days may come.
We are called to bear the cross, and it seems heavy
on the shoulder. Then it is lawful to urge our race
with another motive. When the path we go is
rugged, when pain runs with us hand in hand,
we may seek our comfort where our Master sought
it, in the expectation of the Paradise of God — " Who
for th€ joy that was set before Him, endured the
cross, despising the shame ! " Not always is that
looking forward lawful, lest w^e should forget in
contemplation the daily labour of the race ; but in
our bitter days it is an impulse of strength and
life. The soul springs under it like a ship before
a joyous wind. The pain of earth disappears ; the
cross is blest which has brought to us that vision.
Then, strange but delightful miracle of God ! the
pain becomes an element of strength and speed.

Many have known that truth ; many have felt the

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

suffering of the Christian race changed into a steady

rapture, in which they were borne above the world

as on the wings of angels into the joy which is set

before them.

It is another fruit of our victory, another motive

of the race. The last motive is not less uplifting,

and it is part of the second. We become conscious

of the sympathy of heaven with earth. We feel

ourselves part of the mighty army of the saints

who have conquered and who are now at rest.

Not only the Church of the present is with us,

but the innumerable assembly of the just made

perfect in the past. Inspiring, kindling, consoling,

cheering, sympathising voices are in our ears.

" Well done," we hear, " good and faithful servant."

All around us they sit, in the vast amphitheatre of

the spiritual world, tier on tier of watching figures,

pitying and applauding; solemn, beautiful faces,

shining with the light of discovered truth and

accomplished love, and in infinite peace — our

brothers and sisters of whose divine assemblage

we shall one day form a part ; and among them, in

highest place, with that unutterable love upon His

countenance which drew all humanity, in whose

soft ardours all the others shine, to whom all turn

with reverence their look, to whom we now look

with eager longing, awe and love — Jesus, the

THE CHRISTIAN RACE

beginner and perfecter of our faith, the leader oi
the humanity in whose cause He died, who ran the
race we run, who found His goal in the Father in
whom we too shall find our rest. This is the
inspiring vision that we see, and nothing in the
whole universe can excel its majesty but the reality
of the vision itself. Wherefore seeing we are com-
passed about with so great a cloud of witnesses,
let us run with patience the race that is set before
us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of
our faith.

THE LAST SUNDAY OF THE YEAR

Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within
me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, my soul, and
forget not all his benefits; who forgiveth all thine iniqui-
ties ; who healeth all thy diseases ; who redeemeth thy life
from destruction ; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness
and tender mercies ; who satisfieth thy mouth with good
things, so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's.

Psalm ciii. 1-5

WHEN we look backward, young or old, on all
the days we have lived through, on the
years which image in their seasons our little life
from the springtide of youth to the winter of age, it
is hard to avoid asking ourselves the question :
" What have we lost, what have we gained in the
years gone by ? "

What we have lost we know too well ; what we
have gained we do not know so well. It has not
as yet stood the test of life. Only when the
strife has proved our new tools shall we know
whether we have them, or have but seemed to have

them.

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

Yet, when we look back, we are ready to say that
we have gained much. We have got a keener in-
sight into our business, and can do it more quickly
and more profitably. We know more of the best
ways to get on in our profession. We have en-
larged our sphere of action in politics. We have
read and experimented so much that our knowledge
of the science we follow is largely increased. Our
hand is quicker as an artist, and our pen more ready
as a writer. The whole business of life is easier.
Yes, we have gained much, and it is not to be denied
that this is gain. But is that enough? Are we
satisfied ? Is it sufficient to be a good machine ?
Is the outward all we care for ? Is the business of
life and the doing of it all in all ? Unless there is
something more, will even the business continue to
be well done ?

For my part, I believe that unless the spiritual
and the imaginative are developed in us, unless
these parts of our nature which do not directly
influence our worldly life are also trained to reach
their full development, nothing we do, not even
business, is done as well as it might be done.
Certainly, worldly success alone leaves a man in-
complete. If the life of the soul, of the vital being
at the root of all outward life, has not also gained
new means of living, we are not much better than

THE LAST SUNDAY OF THE YEAR

excellent machines, able to work but unable to
originate new work.

The being that we bring into the movement of
mankind ; the character we build within and shape
into outward act ; the ideas we have gained as the
abiding motives of life ; the emotions which flow
from those ideas and the powers by which they urge
us ; the principles which in the conscience have
become moral passions ; the way in which we have
assimilated and transformed into our own person-
ality all we have learnt, all that circumstance has
brought us ; the capacities within, by which we throw
into form all we believe, admire, hope, imagine, and
love ; the motives by which we determine the paths
which, out of many presented to us, we will take in
business, in politics, in science and in art — these are
of infinitely more importance to us than all that we
have gained in our business, than all the knowledge
we have stored up, than all the systems of religion,
philosophy and science that we have mastered.

Again, from what we have learnt and experienced
we have made the tools of life. It was needful that
we should forge them and possess them. But how
we are using them, what we are doing with them,
whether they are doing work by which man will be
blessed or cursed, and we ourselves ennobled or
degraded, depends on what we are within ; on all

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

that makes up character; on the ideas, motives,
faiths, and hopes who sit as kings and queens and
counsellors in our soul, and command and forbid,
organise and think, feel and imagine, in its chambers.

That is the important, that the vital matter ; and
I counsel you to take stock of your soul, to ask
yourself — What am I within? The best way to
answer that question is to ask another — What have
we done for our fellow men ? That is the right
glass with which we may look at ourselves. Whom
have we blessed, whom have we helped, whom have
we comforted ? Is the world the better for our lives ?
Has that weary giant gained from our work a little
rest, a little consolation, a little gaiety, a little more
of gentle laughter, a little less of bitter tears ?

If you have only attended to your own business

or knowledge, if your ambition or success has been

all in all to you, you cannot have done anything for

sorrow-laden humanity. Selfishness never helped

one human being a single step upon his way ; nay,

its certain result is to beat back or to maim some

of our fellow men. If it rule your inward life the

first question is easily answered. Your spiritual

life has gained nothing, and everything you have

gained in your outward life by merely selfish effort

is loss and ruin to your real life.

But if business and knowledge have been second ;

THE LAST SUNDAY OF THE YEAR

if, while they are pursued, they are pursued under
the rule of love ; if their work is overmastered in
its direction and in its impulse by justice, pity and
truth ; if man is more to you than yourself, and God
is to you seen in man — your gain has then been
infinite. The Spirit of God is in you, for His Spirit
is Love. That is begun in you which must develop
for ever. You do not look forward to, you have,
immortal life. And that inward life is a fountain
whose waters, clear, sweet, and refreshing, will flow
through all the years to come and all their work in
blessing and comfort to mankind. Nor will you
lose the blessing and the comfort of having loved.
Your soul will not be filled with pictures of yourself,
nor with the music of your own successes in the
world, pictures and music which will sicken you to
look on when age drives you to live within. It
will be filled with pictures of the homes you have
blessed, the lives you have saved, the peace and joy
that you have brought to the restless and the broken-
hearted. Its music will be the laughter of men,
women and children whom you have made happy.
The trumpets of the great causes you have helped
will blow their marches in your heart. Often you
will hear clear, but as if over far-off waters, the
ineffable tune of the movement of the human race
marching to God's righteousness, the music of

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

the whole universe as it moves in the love of
God.

O happiness, if in even the smallest way we can
look back and say with humility, but yet with
certainty, because love always knows itself, ** I have
won more of love ; my Master in me is the same
Love which thrilled through Jesus Christ ; the im-
pulse of my soul is tenderness ; the desire of my
life, my very life itself, is self-sacrifice ; my aspira-
tion is to love more and more ; everything in my
outward life shall bow to love's demands ; I know
now what the Lover of the human race meant when
He said, ' I am come that ye might have life, and
that ye might have it more abundantly.' "

And now, having looked back, let us also look
forward, but with the same thoughts in our hearts.
What shall we gain, what shall be our fate in the
years to come ? With what thoughts shall youth,
and manhood, and age welcome the future ?

Some of you who are young are but beginning

life. How will you live it ; what shall be its means

and motives ? That is the gravest question as

you look forward over the unvoyaged sea of the

years to come. And we, who are older, are glad to

welcome you as you come out of the harbour of

home into the tumbling billows of the main. For

many years now we have sailed the seas of life, and

THE LAST SUNDAY OF THE YEAR

our ships have been driven to various shores and
troubled with the siege of storms, and seen strange
islands and strange adventures in diverse seas, from
arctic unto tropic ; change and interchange of watch-
ing and labour and rest. Sunshine and shadow is
life ; but yet the rough sailing has been better than
anchorage in a stagnant calm. Movement and
passion have been our comrades ; trouble that rushed
into joy, joy that prophesied sorrow and fulfilled the
prophecy; darkness that sunlight of a new dawn
divided ; rest that the labour of the tempest rescued
from sloth ; steady steering in the gale, to keep which
true every power was tested to the last resistance ;
sweet harbourage where we refitted our ship and
heard, when all had been done which was needful,
the singing of the land-wind in the tree tops which
called us to hoist sail for a new voyage, and which
to hear filled us with joy. This has been ours, and
to this — to life with all its change — we welcome you.
Your ships are lying ready for the out-path. All
is done you can do in the way of preparation. One
part of youth is closed, and a whole unknown lies
outspread before you. Knowledge has furnished
you for the voyage ; the experience of others is in
your head ; those you love have trimmed your vessel
as they can ; the sails are hoist and eager for the
sea, and the wind favouring as it favours youth.

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

It ought to be a joyous hour. Take God your
Father with you, and since you are bright and
happy, take Him with you by thankfulness and
praise. Praise Him, for He has given you keen
life, the spirit of discovery, and the passion for
truth ; Hope who stands on the prow, Faith who
grasps the helm, the enkindled crew of high thoughts
and noble emotions which should man your ship on
its way to help and save the lost.

And now we join you in your praise to God.
Together, we praise Him that He has put that desire
to save and bless our fellows, who are labouring
in the seas, deep into our heart — the first and fore-
most object of our lifers sailing. We praise Him
for the world of interest and work in which we live,
for the struggle which calls upon our powers, for the
storms which make us veterans of the sea of life,
for the humanity among whom we labour, and for
the love of men which we shall win by saving and
by helping them.

But praise is not enough. Those of us who have
for a long time wandered over the ocean, and those
who are but beginning their wandering, must add to
the power and joyfulness of praise the power and
quietude of prayer. We look forward, and experi-
ence makes our outlook graver than that of youth.
Youth looks forward also, and the unknown brings

THE LAST SUNDAY OF THE YEAR

dim presentiments of trouble. What will have been,
we think, when a few more years have passed away ?
How will our ships be then ? What lands shall we
have visited, what new tribes of men ? Shall we have
helped to civilise these unknown fields of labour ?
Shall we have brought comfort and love to their
indwellers ? Will God have enabled us, who now
know our weakness, to bring to them wiser ways
and larger hopes ? What stars will have gone out
in our sky, what stars will have been born for us ?
Will our heavens be the old heavens or the new ?
Shall God be felt behind them, or will despair over-
cloud them ? What storms shall we have battled
through ; or shall our barks be shattered, or sink
with a cry in the silent night? How many
shipwrecked crews and desolate wanderers shall
we have rescued on the ocean, or shall the
lust of our own desire have deafened our ears to
the cries of men ? How much shall we have
gained for the Master of mankind by our trading,
or shall we have sailed only for our own gain ?
O, in the perilous sea of life, what lies before us !
When we come into the port of death, what will
be the judgment which the Harbour-Master will
pronounce ?

When we think thus and realise our own weak-
ness, knowing our temptations and trembling fo

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

our fortitude^ we know that we must kneel and pray
as we look forward ; that it is the time to throw our-
selves upon the strength of God and claim it as
our own ; to grasp firmly our faith in Him in whose
love all conquest lies, in whose faithfulness to us
all storms but bring us peace, in whose love to
mankind all our work is contained and fortified, in
whom death is the hour of our greatest victory.
Therefore we count not to have attained ; therefore
we pray to-day — " Father and Redeemer, dwell
within our ship of life ; be our light and life and
strength and comfort. Enable us in the tempest,
keep us humble in the sunny calm ; fill our sails
with the wind of Thy inspiration ; be in us courage
and fortitude, watchfulness and prudence; be our
voice when we call to men and speak our truth ; be
our heart to love them. Keep us always in Thy
love, give us joy in Thy presence ; lift us above the
spirit of self ; let earthly success be nothing in com-
parison with Thy truth, with our truth to Thy
righteousness. Teach us to live always close to
men Thy children, and to love them to the end. In
every hour of our voyage may we do the work
Thou hast given us to do, and when the ship in
which we sail sees at last the shining haven and
crosses the stormy bar, grant that with our Captain

Jesus we may cry above the whelming wave of

THE LAST SUNDAY OF THE YEAR

death, "It is finished. Father, into Thy hands I
commend my spirit."

It is chiefly thus that middle-age looks out over the
undiscovered seas in fervent prayer to God ; for we
know that life, if we are true to God, must be full of
storm and strife. Yet there are days when the
tempest rests, and then, in the moment of peace
and repose, when we feel that we have conquered
in the gale, how deep and fervent, yet how silent, is
our praise of God our King ; how well we know,
and how steady in the knowledge is our thanksgiving,
that He has done the right thing for us in sending us
through the storm, in putting arms into His seamens'
hands and saying, ''Fight manfully, sail boldly,
even unto death. If you help yourself as a freeman I
will be with you.'' So passes on our life, and, strange
enough, as we grow older and decay is nearer, these
hours of praise become more frequent, and the hours
when we need prayer less frequent ; till at last, if we
have been true sailors under the flag of Love, the
day comes when prayer is lost in praise, when the
temper of youth again is ours, and in the joyous-
ness of thanksgiving we live through the fading of
old age.

It is that quiet and happy time to which those
who are growing old may now look forward ; in
which those already old may now abide. The

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

voyages are over ; we are no longer called on to
tempt the seas. We let our anchor drop in the
glassy haven, under the hornH cliffs; and if at
times we hear the storm blow and the sea thunder
far away, it ruffles no wave in our sunny fiord and
we smile as we say, ** That is over now. I have
had my day, but now the eventide and calm are dear.
Soon, in a new ship of youth, I shall begin another
life where the tempest is unknown. Meanwhile I
wait the change, not uncheered by visions of what
is to be. For, indeed, the heavenly country lies
close at hand, under the lee, as I ride to anchor. I
see the trees of life that fringe its cliffs. Often I
catch sight of its bright indwellers and hear their
songs. The living odours and the sounds of its
waters are blown upon my spirit, and I breathe the
immortal airs. At times, above the belt of wood,
the ineffable light of perfect Love shoots like a
thought of God. It is not hope I have, but cer-
tainty."

So many an old man speaks, lying in the calm.
It is the happiness of age, and out of it rises the
incense of unspeakable praise. Prayer is no more
needed, it is all changed into thanksgiving. Then,
at last, the old sea-warrior sees his Easter day.
The dawn breaks, the stars of earth die out. The sun

of universal Love arises, all his trumpets sounding.

THE LAST SUNDAY OF THE YEAR

God opens the perfect peace, the fulness of joy that
radiates from righteousness, the creative life that
Love makes and remakes for ever. Therefore, bless
the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless
His holy name.

THE HEART OF ST. PAUL

Who is weak, and I am not weak ? who is offended,
and I bum not ?

2 Corinthians, xi. 29

WHEN you heard read to-day this chapter
from St. Paul's second Epistle to the
Corinthians, did it not strike you what an impas-
sioned creature he was ; and how little the quiet
philosophers of his time would think of a letter
so full, as they would say, of personal imprudence,
of swift self-defence, of unregulated fire ? " This
man," I hear the solemn Rabbis crying, ^[ has lost his
head ; " and the academies of the day, if they had
read the letter, would have tossed it aside, as Ox-
ford, Dublin and Cambridge would despise it, were
it issued now. "This kind of writing, without
balance or care, in bad Greek, unliterary, quite
formless, intemperate from excitement — is quite
impermanent ; " so utterly unable is a culture which
is decaying, and which thinks in its senile vanity
that its absence of passion is its highest power, to

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

comprehend new ideas, or the energy they awaken,
or the vast career before them.

When the new ideas which move the world are
well established, the form men give them matters
much ; but when they are young and flaming, their
foEm is of little importance. In fact, they first
appear in many different shapes, none of which are
well made, and all of which are waiting to mingle
together into the finished form mankind can best
and most wisely use. But, nevertheless, their beauty
and strength burst through their ragged clothing;
and those who express them never pause to weigh
what they say, or how they say it. They are too
exalted by the ideas. They have lost themselves
in love of that they speak, and that of which they
speak is love. Yes, is love ; for every impassion-
ating idea in religion and in morals has its source
and its end in the desire to better the life of man,
to bring him nearer to perfection in God, if we
believe in God the Father ; in himself, if we only
believe in man. Both forms of the desire, at their
root, are part of that divine Gospel which in a
thousand ways declares that the only enduring life
of man is in loving one another ; or, to put it in
another fashion, in living for those noble ideas and
the great human causes which are their forms, by
whose incessantly acting powers the race of man is

THE HEART OF ST. PA UL

urged into a life in which love is the master of
every thought and every act. This was the foun-
tain which sprang up in the heart of St. Paul. This
made him yearn to redeem every man, woman and
child he met ; the archetype of this life he loved in
Jesus Christ from whom it poured into his heart ;
this filled him with self-forgetful love ; and this was
the life-blood of his message, the fire of his life.
It made him simple and passionate. No one can
imagine how intensely love and desire burned in
St. Paul as he entered Philippi, Lystra, Corinth, or
Rome. It was a passion which made his work per-
manent, which gives it power now though centuries
have passed away. And this was the cause why it
did not matter a straw whether all the cultivated
world thought he had lost his head. That world
was dying of old age. St. Paul's world was as young
as Apollo when first he opened his eyes at Delos.

Now, let me put the same thing in another
fashion. Did it strike you, when you heard that
ardent appeal, how curious it was that letters
written in this sudden, impulsive, unreflecting way,
at a single jet, without correction, sent off while
their ink was still wet, broken up with half-thoughts
— things half begun or half finished just as phrases
are in conversation — letters not composed for the
future in a philosopher's study, but striking hard at

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

the present moment, and full of the agitations, pre-
occupations and strifes of the passing day ; letters
brimming with himself, with his love, his reproach,
his sweetness of affection, his ideality ; and yet still
more, full of the wants and woes and goodness and
badness of those to whom he writes, so that even in
his most personal statements, as in this chapter, we
think more of the cause on behalf of which he
writes than of himself; letters of occasion as I
might call them — did it not strike you, how curious
it was that letters of such a type should have had
so mighty an influence on the heart of man, and
beyond man's heart on his intellect — for indeed some
of the mightiest monuments of the work of the
human mind start from these momentary letters of
St. Paul ? Did that not strike you ? One would
say that they would be quite as ephemeral as ser-
mons, and yet they have lasted more than 1800
years, and their kindling power is undiminished.

Well, one thing which has given them this long
life was just this personality in them. There lives
and moves the man, emerging clear ; we see down to
the bottom of his soul. As he writes we hear him,
as it were, talking to his most intimate friends. It
is impossible to get nearer to a man than we get to
St. Paul ; and a revelation of that kind is of undy-
ing interest to men, whenever that which we see is

THE HEART OF ST, PAUL

loving, is a revelation not of selfishness, but of self-
forgetfulness. The Apostle could not have made
himself so vivid had he been thinking of himself.
Pride, vanity, prudence would have checked or modi-
fied his statements, and spoiled the lucidity of the
image he has left. But he was carried away by his
love and his ideas, and he opened like a fan. And
what we see is not the man thinking about himself,
or analysing his feelings, or careful to display his
heart in a fine light, but a man who is not thinking
about himself at all ; only about his cause. Even
in this impassioned self-defence, it is plain that he
is defending his own equality with the rest of the
Apostles solely because its depreciation by others
endangered the ideas for which he lived, and which
he thought, and justly thought, were necessary for
the welfare of the faith of Christ. When he seems
to a blinded reader most full of himself, it is for the
sake of others. And it is because this revelation
of personality has its root thus in love of true and
high conceptions, and of men, that it has retained
its charm for centuries. Nothing endures which is
not rooted in Love, not even vigorous personality.

Another reason for their lasting follows on what
I have said ; it is their humanity. Having lost him-
self, Paul found himself again in his people. The
letters are crowded with all the human doings and

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

thinkings of the Corinthians. He rejoices over them
and weeps over them ; he blames them and makes
excuses for them. At a distance from them, he
seems to be sitting amongst them, so entirely has
he projected himself outside of himself. Every
Corinthian, as he heard the letter read, must have
felt the writer by his side, and said to himself: " See
how he loves us, knows us ! How keen he is 1
Why, the smallest thing about us interests him."

This nearness to all that is human is one of the
permanent elements in all that is done and thought
and written. Where that is, there is no age and
no decay. The dawn itself is not fresher nor more
immortal. Moreover, such humanity cannot be
without love, and love is always young ; no custom,
no lapse of years can stale the pleasure that it gives.
Here we stand in a changed world, wrought by
science, law, literature, invention, into a condition in
which St. Paul would be as great a stranger as the
Corinthians to whom he wrote ; but the charm, the
life, the tenderness of his letter are as fresh and
keen to us as they were to the Corinthians. No
wonder! it has the. humanity by which all writings
live and win the affections of mankind.

There is yet another element of continuance.

Personality, humanity, make writings live. But in

order to lift them to the highest level of enduring-

THE HEART OF ST, PAUL

ness, there must be, behind the personal and human
elements, one or two great aims^ founded on a pure
love, and on high thoughts which bear on the in-
terest and welfare of the universal soul of man, and
which are everywhere and at all times needful for
its health and progress. St. Paul had such a single
aim, and he sacrificed his whole life on its altar.
Underneath all he did, and thrilling through every
letter he wrote, and I doubt not through every speech
he made, there was the impassioned desire to set
free through Christ the human soul from all its
oppressions. Inward liberty, that was his aim ;
and that the form into which he threw the still
mightier thought of the unity of the soul of Man
with God.

He saw the tyranny of sin, of the false passions,
of man's own selfish will by which man enslaved
himself. " Serve the love of God," he cried ; " live
in Christ, and these oppressors are no more." He
saw and hated the tyranny of the intellect in
spiritual things. All belief and practice must be
formulated into intellectual propositions; the out-
goings of the heart settled into a creed ; the indi-
vidual feelings of different men tied up into bundles
of the same shape, embodied in the same ritual ;
Roman bound to think the same way about God as

Greek, Greek forced to say the same as Syrian, Syrian

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

to speak the same language as Alexandrian, and all
the same as the Jew. '* Let the soul/* said St. Paul,
" be free to make its own form, whether of creed or
ritual. Be not bewitched with this lying trickery.
Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made
you free. There is nothing needful but love of the
Father, and love of men, the children of the Father."
With that love in the heart, every man may
make his own form, his own creed. In Christ
there is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free,
male nor female; no exclusive doctrines or rites
such as divide men into sects. In him there
is only the unlimited spirit of love, which freely
formulates truth for itself. Even when St. Paul
wrote the Epistle to the Romans, and was betrayed
into using intellectual formulas, and handed down
therewith a grievous heritage to the Churches, there
rises continually, after or among the arguments, his
revolt from the limiting impertinence of the reason-
ing intellect, whenever it desires to imprison or to
comprehend in argumentative propositions the in-
finite of Love and Faith. His feeling sweeps him
beyond his arguments. It is as if he were sick of
chopping logic — and indeed he was not fit for it.
You remember how, after the long and barren dis-
cussion of the ninth, tenth, and eleventh chapters
of the Roman Epistle, he settles the whole matter by

THE HEART OF ST. PAUL

an outburst of emotion. He sees the infinitude of
God's love, and forgets all the to-and-fro of his
theological arguments. He suddenly proclaims a
universal salvation, and his whole style changes
into passion. " God hath concluded all in unbelief
that He might have mercy upon all. O the depth
of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of
God ; how unsearchable are His judgments, and His
ways past finding out I For of Him and through
Him and to Him are all things. Glory to Him for
ever. Amen." That, at least, was the action of the
life of the Apostle. And I still hope that he wrote
the Epistle to the Ephesians, because its amazing
difference from the Epistle to the Romans shows
that, at varied times of his life, he felt free to
express himself in shades of thought, as diverse as
they were ardent.

He saw again, the tyranny of the ritualistic law,
and this was what came chiefly before him; the
attempt of the Jewish Christians to impose on the
Gentiles the weight and yoke of ceremonies without
the observance of which men could not be saved —
a dreadful tyranny which has lasted to this day in
various forms. Even now mankind suffers from its
curse whenever a Church or sect declares that
unless men accept their ritual and its belief, they
cannot be of God, they cannot be saved. This

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

smote at the root of St. Paul's essential idea — the
freedom of the human soul before God. '' This is
a lie," he cried. " Not by anything outside, but by
the faith within him does a man live, is he justified
before God ; " and the words, in a thousand different
relations, have been the charter of that liberty of
the soul which has been contended for in politics,
in art, in literature as well as in religion, all over
the world.

This universal aim of his, this oneness of purpose ;
this master-thought into which ran up all the other
thoughts of his life ; this idea which became in his
hands a living being with a voice of joy, and which
is as necessary for the whole of the human race as
light and air — ^this it is, which, pouring its power
into his personal passion and his intense humanity,
has given to his writings their certainty of enduring,
and their universal power. There is no future time
in which this idea of the freedom of the soul in indi-
vidual touch with God will not claim the interest
and kindle the imagination of the human race !

To set free the soul ! Whatever be the faults of
Free Churches, and they are many, their steady
effort (both in our own land and abroad) to keep the
soul free in spiritual matters, has been their excel-
lence. It lies at the very foundation of their organ-
isation. For its sake they have set aside creeds,

THE HEART OF ST. PAUL

formulas, every intellectual proposition which limits
or circumscribes the indi\4dual outgoings of the soul
to God the Father. They have lost in doing this
many human advantages, but they have gained the
greatest good — the freedom of the soul to love God
and Man in its own way, to make its own form of
faitb and worship for itself. In this they are far
nearer to Christ than any Church or sect which is
hampered with fixed creeds and rigid ritual; or
which threatens loss of salvation to those who will
not confess the creeds or accept the ritual — far closer
to the central thought of the soul of Jesus ; more
able, if they only loved more, to do His work in His
own way. It is true such Churches have been often
betrayed, like St. Paul, into too intellectual, too
argumentative, too controversial a religion ; but that
will pass as time goes on, when they are less forced
to stand on their defence. But the root of the
matter is in them, the freedom of the soul to form
in love its own worship and its own faith towards
God the Father. This was the idea of Jesus ; and
in carrying it out, He broke loose from the accredited
Church and theology of His day, and went to war
with them. And this is the great trust committed
to our hands; and it calls on all of us to walk
worthy of our vocation, to keep the freedom of the
soul in obedience to the law of love.

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

. I said that St. Paul had not only one great aim or
cause, but also that he kindled its movements by a
profound love ; and this love, as well as his devotion
to his idea, gave his work permanence. High aims
for noble causes are apt, in our wearied lives, to
thin out of action, unless they are animated by a
strong and tender human love. We need to have
ideas humanised, if we are to be constant to and
steadfast in them.

Such a love was at the root of St. Paul's life.
Deeper, stronger than any other element in his
writings is his vital love of Jesus Christ; deeper
far than any earthly love, because the object of it,
though living with him and in the world, was yet
beyond the love of eye and ear and touch — the
noblest, the most fruitful kind of love ; because,
being of a spirit to a spirit, it could not play with
selfishness.

This was the human element of immortal emotion
which pervaded, as light pervades the universe, the
heart of St. Paul ; warming into vital movement all
he thought and all he felt ; kindling him into undy-
ing aspiration ; bearing him on from town to town
over the Roman world ; building church after
church ; and making every idea he possessed, and
chiefly this freedom of the soul, not an abstract
thought but a passionate pursuit — nay, more, a

THE HEART OF ST. PAUL

living being, with voice, and eyes, and hands and
feet. It embodied every idea he possessed in the
person of Jesus, the Master of Love, the Revealer of
Life. To me, he cried, to live is Christ. ^

It is this I recommend to you. It is the tendency
of some theorists at present to put Jesus and His
life into the background ; to imagine that we can
have a religion which will continuously move the
world of men without a human master, whose life
not only kindles human emotion round human life,
but also fills the aspirations of our soul with the
belief that they have been accomplished by one of
ourselves, in humanity. There are those who think
that the vast conception of the Father is enough for
life without the conception of a human life in which
all that the Father conceived for man was realised
on earth to claim our love. I do not believe it.
Were it so, God Himself would have thought so.
But He did not. When man was educated by God
to the point where he could see greater truths, God
gave the world Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Man,
that we might know what Love was in humanity ;
and might love Him for that love, from which neither
death nor life shall part us. Thus all that men feel
for divinity in God the Father was, in the religious
life, doubled by all that men feel for humanity.

Take Jesus, then, to your heart. Love of Him is

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

necessary for our religion, if it is to have a full power
of redemption among men. It is needed to give our
causes movement, our ideas personality, our life
tenderness, our human soul its full expansion in
love over all the children of God. That was St.
Paul's conviction ; I pray that it may be ours.

And now it remains to ask how we can apply
what we have said of the reasons of the enduring-
ness of the writings of St. Paul to our own lives ?
The first reason I gave was their vigorous personal
element.

It is one of the modem fashions to decry individu-
ality. ''We must sacrifice it to mankind," we are
told ; and that is a very good thing to say, if it does
not lead us into leaving ourselves with no indi-
viduality to sacrifice. "We must merge it in the
collective interest," as if it were not for the collec-
tive interest that each man should have his own
vital and special interests. These sayings enclose
only half-truths ; and they are one of the checks to
individuality which ethical societies and religions of
humanity and altruistic philosophies are tending to
produce. Another check comes from society — a
dull society which does not like to be ruffled. " We
must keep individuality down lest we shock the
world. There is one pattern after which we should

all be made ; one set of opinions, one rule of life.

THE HEART OF ST. PAUL

Anything personal which jars these dulcet arrange-
ments is improper. It is unwise to speak of your
own feelings or to air your own thoughts. If you
must do it, do it as if you were not doing it."

This set against individual thought and action is
one, as St. Paul would say, of the "elements of
the world," and in its various forms is a sore
trouble to mankind. If you weaken individuality,
you weaken the vital force of the race. The varieties,
to speak for a moment with an air of science,
out of which new species of human thought are
developed, are then suppressed. Could you destroy
individuality, the salt would be taken out of our pro-
gress, the sharp and healthy element out of all that
is done and written. But I need not anticipate this
melancholy fate. This uniform mediocrity, the Para-
dise of certain people, will never be reached. The
element of individuality will always be too strong
for the levelling elements of the world that oppose
it ; ay, and for all the religious or moral teaching
which says " Crush your personality." There never
has been a time when human nature has not rebelled
against this common tyranny, and beaten it in the
end.

But there is a limit to the indulgence of one's own
special turn, and the limit does not diminish but
enhances the pleasure of the just indulgence of being

97 r.

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

true to that distinct personality we derive from God.
It is the limit set by the law of love. No one has
put it better than St. Paul, who had learnt it through
the temptations of his own strong individuality.
When the exercise of our personal turn does wrong
to men, leads them into evil, makes them look at the
base, the sensual, or the ugly, is cruel to the weak,
attacks or violates at any point the law of love — then
a man must limit the outgoings of his individuality,
and that not only for the sake of mankind, but, as
he will find out, for the sake of keeping his indi-
vidual powers. The practice of things, or the pro-
pagation of views, however original you think them,
which degrade, or weaken, or injure mankind in
any way whatever, degrade, weaken and injure the
roots of your own being. The doer of these things
loses in the end his individuality. He becomes a
mere mannerist, one of a lot, some one whom you
can class at once, a useless person, not a person at
all. We know, only too well, how often in art, in
literature, in politics, in religion, the selfish indi-
vidualist has died.

There is but one law. Let individuality have its
full swing in behalf of others, not of yourself; in
behalf of causes which do not belong to your own
worldly interests. When you are borne away on a
stream of love, then you may be as individual as you

9«

THE HEART OF ST. PAUL

like, and then everything personal in you will give
pleasure ; and then also, most delightful fruit of love,
your personality itself will develop into power,
virtue, and an opulence of expansion of which at
first you had no conception. Never, never do we
feel so much ourselves, so original, so distinct, so
conscious of being, as when we have lost all the
selfish aims into which personality is directed, in a
rush of love — love of God, love of man, love of a
noble idea or a great cause. When we have lost all
the little relative personalities in which our own
desires enthrall us, we have secured absolute per-
sonality. Whosoever loseth his life, the same shall
find it.

As to the second element in St. Paul's writings
which gave them their lasting quality, there is not
much need to speak of it. Every one confesses that
the more we can feel with all that is human, the
better and fresher we are, the more capable of fine
enjoyment, the more delightful and useful to the
world. That is now almost a truism. But very few
make it, as Christ made it, the business of their lives.
Men have more interest in business, in getting on,
in what they call practical life which means lining
their pockets, in pleasure, in being talked of, in
social repute, than in learning, through love of men
and women, to know why men and women weep

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

and rejoice, why they love and hate, how they live
and love and die, of what stuff human nature is made,
and how it behaves in the varied circumstances
of the great drama we are playipg in sight of the
universe.

Yet, there is the real interest of human, of public
life ; the impassionating interest, the interest which
never knows satiety, which never allows the con-
science to go to sleep, the intellect to weary, the
imagination to become empty of subjects, the heart
to grow cold, or the' spirit to starve, and which,
best of all, is of itself eternal. We can conceive
no period, after millions and millions of years, in
which we could lose our interest in human nature ;
yes, in the very simplest forms of it — in a mother's
love for her child, in a maiden's first feeling of
love, in a young man's first aspiration, in a son's
reverence for his father.

• There is that eternal divinity in these matters ot
simple humanity which takes us back into the very
essence of God, into the primal light and life of pure
love, and in us into all the colours and shadows of
love. These things are always the same at root,
but in every spirit that ever lived in all the worlds
of space, they have been different in form : some
touch in their evolution makes them various. The
more we see of them and know, the more fine plea-

lOO

THEJIEART OF ST. PAUL

sure we attain and keep ; the better work we shall
do, and the more shall we be loved. For love in us
will create love in others. What we give will come
back to us— "good measure of love, pressed down
and shaken together, will men give into our bosom."
In that is the charm of being; there is the true
romance, the true poem of life ; there the true source
and power of creation ; there the greatest nearness
to Christ Jesus.

Lastly, cherish in your heart and act out in your
life some universal idea, the embodiment in thought
of some high and worthy cause ; one of the mother-
ideas at whose breasts all the children of men drink
nourishment and pleasure. And the idea, as you
live it, will enchant your daily life, and also, because
it is necessary for the good of men, will make you
full of humanity.

Few can make these ideas, nor are they many.
But all can grasp as the foundation of active life
some one of the great ideas which the experience
of history has proved of vital use to the human race,
and dedicate their life to its service. There is the
idea of the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood
of all men in Him. There arc the sequent ideas of
equal freedom and of equal justice for all men.
There is the deepest idea of Jesus — that because all
are children of God, to give up one's self for others

lOI

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

is the true life. There is the idea that Man is
destined to endless development in God, because
Righteousness, which is Love, must be omnipotent.

There are others, these few are but examples.
Choose one, and in choosing one you choose the
rest — for these vast conceptions are forms of one
primal thought and energy ; and, having chosen it,
live it forth in your life. Bring up to it, as it sits
within you on its throne, its great eyes flashing with
its universal life, and its mouth speaking trumpet
things such as the angel spoke to John ; bring up to
its feet, beneath which a river of life flows, watering
the soul with unfailing dew — bring to it as its ser-
vants, your desires, hopes, fears and aspirations,
the powers and principalities of your soul, your
outward life, your social life, your business, your
profession, your duties and pursuits, that the idea
may pervade them with itself and animate them into
active love.

So will you, almost without knowing it, love man-
kmd, and bless it at every moment ; and dignifying
your own life, make it honourable and full of noble
joy; till — in the unity of purpose and force you
gain by the steady direction of every power in you
towards one end — you win in the end, harmony of
being; that glorious thing which, of all the divine
goods possible to man, the Greeks saw was the first,

I02

THE HEART OF ST. PAUL

and Jesus made His own, and called it '* Peace, my
peace"; His dearest legacy to us. Think then of
this ; and as you think remember how Jesus, who
had done this thing, expressed it — and who may
imagine the surge of silent joy within Him as thus,
in the very face of death, He said it — " For this end
was I born, and for this cause came I into the world,
to bear witness to the truth."

103

OF WHAT USE IS THE BATTLE?

You know that your labour in the Lord is not in vain.

I Cor. XV. 58

THE aspect under which life presented itself to
St. Paul was at once stern and joyous. " As
sorrowful, but always rejoicing," and the joy came,
in his mind, directly out of the sorrow. Nor, indeed,
was it so much sorrow in our personal sense of the
word that he meant, as tribulation — the general
trouble that arises from facing the difficulties and
temptations of the Christian warfare, from standing
firm against the world, from self-subjugation. Life
was to him a pursuit, a race, a battle ; but a pursuit
which should attain, a race which had a goal, a battle
which was to end in victory. The struggle was
constant, the watchfulness should be unvarying, the
armour with which he armed the Christian soldier
always ready. Yet, the end was worth all the trouble,
and the battle made the soul. ** So fight I, not as one
that beateth the air. I press forward to the mark,

the prize of my high calling in Christ Jesus."

107

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

But this noble temper is not the temper of a large
part of modern life, nor was it the temper of the
over-civilised Roman when St. Paul was alive. We
ask, as the Roman asked from the depths of his
luxury : " Of what use is it all ? What use to me,
what use to the world ? As far as I can see, matters
are not better than they were one hundred years
ago. All is doubt, all is trouble. I cannot tell
whether what we call Nature may not knock all
my work on the head to-morrow. I cannot tell
whether the fancy of an emperor, or the ill-temper
of a statesman, or the caprice of a mob may not
destroy in five years the progress the world has made
in civilisation. Nor can I tell whether we pass into
dust and gas or into life when we die. Of what use
then is it to struggle and labour, to contend, to run
with patience ? Why should I be always climbing up
the barren wave ? Why should I soar to the stars
when I have no certainty that I shall not fall, like
Icarus, headlong into the unrecording ocean ? " This
is the frequent cry of our society. And whether
it be the lotus-eater's cry, or that of coarser sen-
sualism, or that of the weary sceptic, or that of the
brutal criminal — its querulous petulance is the same.
" What is the use of it all, to what end ? How I
came here, I don*t know. What is the end of my
labour here? I do not know. Whither I am

io8

OF WHAT USE IS THE BATTLE?

going I cannot tell and I do not seem to care. Then,
why should I endue armour, why should I fight, why
should I gird up my loins and run so furiously?
Tell me that ! "

These are questions which, whenever they per-
vade a whole society, prove that such a society is in
an advanced stage of decay. They have been fre-
quently asked when great empires were dying, and
they never have had but one reply — the overthrow
of that nation by another which did think that life
was worth living, and things worth the doing, and
the end worth the battle. They have frequently
been asked by the whole of one class in a nation ;
and then that class has gone down like a rotten
ship, run into and sunk by other classes in the
nation, either high or low, who had keen hopes and
lofty aspirations, whose men loved to fight the battle
and to run the race.

It is only a certain type among us who ask these
questions. I say, a type, and not a class ; for there
is no special class infected as a class by this disease.
The cry comes out of a temper of sloth, self-in-
dulgence, satiety-ridden appetite, mental exhaustion,
want of love and its imaginations — and no class is
free from such a temper. But the comfortable, and
the people called cultivated, are more liable to it than

the poor and ignorant. Luxury is its copious nurse,

109

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

and the vanity of science persuades it that its un-
beliefs are very fine things. Were all England to
groan out these questions, the country would not be
worth existing. But that is not the case. On the
whole, men and women care for their life, and like
their fighting — and not only for themselves. During
the last thirty years England has wrought well for
other causes than those which belong only to Mam-
mon and the world. As to the question, " To what
goal is life directed, whither are we going, of what
good is effort ? " — it is debated far and wide and with
extraordinary interest. It is worth while, then, to
join in the debate, and at least to see what St. Paul
thought of the matter. He did not shirk the question,
" Of what use is it all — this war, this race " ? There
was, he said, a prize for each individual, and for the
whole.

And he did right not to limit the question and the
answer to individuals alone. Even more than he,
we are convinced, at this stage in the world's
history, that whatever answer is given must take in
the whole of mankind as well as the parts. We
must not only find use and good in our battle ; all
men must also find them. The full corporate
body of humanity must reach the goal of good ; and
only in the good of the whole shall each separate

person of the body find his own good. Even St.

OF WHAT USE IS THE BATTLE?

Paul, who could not have been so conscious of the
unity of mankind as we are, was carried, as we see
in many passages, beyond the limits of his time and
thought, and saw, in prophetic idea, all mankind
crowned with the crown of life and at one with God
through Jesus Christ. The proper answer must in-
clude the personal life of each, and the life of the
whole.

The answer of the pessimist, an answer which is
given by a number of persons among the decaying
type of whom I have spoken, is not such an answer.
It is true it includes the whole and the parts, but it
includes them in a negative in which they are them-
selves negatives. It declares not only that the
whole body perishes and every member of it, but
that all their effort is base, and all that they fight
for contemptible. It calls those qualities of human
nature which men agree to think the best — such a
quality as love — blind motions of appetite, sense and
matter. It says that the world and human life are
unutterably vile and miserable. There is only one
aim the wise man should have, and that is to perish
as quickly as possible ; only one good he can do to
his fellows, and that is to convince them of the
blessing of annihilation — the happy escape from the
measureless meanness and misery of human life.

That is one answer, and the statement of it seems

III

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

its best refutation. It is not human life, but this
theory of it, which is immeasurably mean. But so
long as one grain of national or individual vigour
remains uneaten away by luxury and selfishness,
so long there is no chance of this doctrine prevailing
in men or in a nation. Were it not so ugly it might
be taken as an elaborate philosophic jest, and,
indeed, I am told that this is the view sometimes
taken of it in the country where its most substantial
phantom has arisen. It is not a jest. It proclaims
so strongly that those who hold it are an element of
corruption in society, that we must take it seriously.
Secondly, there is an answer given to these
questions by some in the religious world. These
work out their theory of God and man in such a
way as to promote the salvation of a moderate
number of individuals, and to fling the rest either
as rubbish to the void, or as fodder for hell. The
struggle, they think, is of use and good to those who
believe a certain set of doctrines ; and who, having
believed them, live by them. These attain the prize
of happiness ; these live for ever in God. But those
who will not confess these docrines — they may strive
and war for the good of men all their life long ; they
may be just and loving — it is of no good to them,
nor is their struggle of any good to the rest of men.
This is even a worse lie than pessimism, for it

112

OF WHAT USE IS THE BATTLE?

degrades the character of the God they have created,
and makes Him more hateful than the idols of the
heathen.

What is the use of imposing a character on God
which the conscience of the world justly considers
immoral ; and which day by day will seem less just,
less loving than men are ? When God is represented
as morally inferior to man by religious persons, reli-
gion and morality are divorced from God ; and that is
unfortunate for States and men. What is the use of
the spirit of God labouring on men and bringing them
to a higher morality in the course of history, if men
who call themselves religious, and who, indeed, are
religious, still keep up doctrines which deny the work
of the Spirit ? Let them reform their doctrines. More-
over, their answer only takes note of individuals, it
neglects the whole. As such, it is an answer which
has no just reason for existence in this time of the
world's history, when the fate of the whole is first in
men^s minds and the fate of the individual second.
We have at last begun to understand what must seem
obvious to God the Father — that the fate of the whole
is one, not two; and includes the fate of the individual.

There is another point of view in which we may

test the truth of this orthodox opinion. While it

saves and blesses a few, its natural contention is

that the mass of men are going from bad to worse.

113 u

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

Is that true ? Has it a grain of sense in it ? At any
rate the whole of modern science is against it. This
view contradicts all that we know of the evolution of
man. It contradicts the known facts of the history of
man. Man did not begin, as it says, in goodness and
perfection, but emerged by slow and indefinite
growth into a savage state in which he discovered
fire, arms and clothing; established pastoral life,
then agriculture, and drew together into communities,
which by slow degrees aimed at living not only for
one another, but for the good of their descendants.

We look at a continuous progress, not at a
fall, and then at retrogression. Then followed,
century after century, the development of laws, of
the arts of life, of government, of commerce, of cities,
of societies, of literature, of music, painting, archi-
tecture ; of moral ideas ; of spiritual life ; of religion ;
of the sense of duty owed by the individual to the
whole of the human race — a progress, a development,
which, though slow, is of ineffable magnificence ;
which, though stained with a thousand evils, is of
so grand a morality, of so noble an afi*ection, of so
vast an intellectual power, of so subtle and far-
reaching an imagination and spirituality, that when
we consider it, apart from this untrue theory, we are
lost in the splendour and nobleness of it ; and if

we are Christians, look up with awe and gratitude

114

OF WHAT USE IS THE BATTLE?

to God whom we believe to be guiding man, through
all his wanderings, into perfectness at last.

But it is not so with those who make this seeming
religious answer. What must we think of a God, who,
according to them, saves a few persons, and allows
the rest to sink into the evil that He hates ? We
can only think of Him as we think of a despotic
sultan who has favourites ; and who is Himself
unable to save the rest if He wished it ; or unwill-
ing to save them if He is able. And both supposi-
tions are a degradation of the idea of God. No,
that answer will not do.

Thirdly, there is the answer given by the excellent
people v/ho will have nothing to do with God and
immortal life ; who say that the only thing they know
is humanity ; and that the individual is frankly and
of a willing heart to sacrifice himself for the welfare
of the whole ; who say that he must do this without
any hope of a life to come, which is a selfish thing
to desire ; but with the hope, which is not selfish,
that he will live in the future humanity by the good
that he has done. Everybody perishes in the end,
the whole as well as the parts ; but the whole will
continue for a long time. Live as goodness, force,
intelligence, beauty in that whole while it lasts.
This is the only immortality. Sacrifice all indi-
viduality and all its hopes to the welfare of the race.

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

Of course the first thing to be said in answer to
this theory is — that it leaves out of its scope all
the criminals, all the selfish, all those who are sloth-
ful, all the sinners against society ; and in that it is
just as cruel as the religious folk who send the greater
part of the world to hell. It is true the bad folk
are annihilated by this theory, and so far, are better
off; but their life is no good to them, and no good,
save as warning, to the human race. This theory
then only answers the question — ** Of what use is all
this effort? " for a very small part of the human race —
for the select few who can be moral without much
trouble, who can sacrifice themselves with pleasurable
ease, and who can endure the thought that all they do
of good meets at last precisely the same fate which
befalls the worst wickedness of the world. Death
swallows every one at last, indiscriminately ; fool and
wise, evil and good, cruel and loving, martyr and
sensualist, criminal and saint. All the trouble is for
nothing in the end. It matters little whether this
end come in a thousand years or in a hundred million
years. The farce and futility of absolute death as
the close of human history is not lessened by distance
of time.

Nay, it is increased. The longer the human race

continues, the nobler its developments — and the

growth from better to better of man is part of this

ii6

OF WHAT USE IS THE BATTLE?

theory — the longer love and beauty last, the higher
in the process of years justice, truth, knowledge and
art are expanded — the more miserable and abominable
is the outlook of this theory, the more unjust and
unintelligent is the close. Men cannot realise, when
they lightly think, things that seem so far away as
this entire destruction of all the work and all the
love of mankind. If they could, if they were always
to see this conclusion, so shameful is it, they would
loathe their life worse than the worst pessimist.
And if it be true, pessimism is the wisest theory of
life, the most accordant to nature.

That is one aspect of this theory. It urges
nobility of life, and then tramples that nobility into
the same ruin as baseness of life. It sacrifices the
individual, and when every individual is sacrificed
and all the good of sacrifice attained, what becomes
of the perfected whole ? It is stamped out by the
soulless power. Moreover, in the hurry of this
theory to secure the good of the collective body of
humanity, and in subordinating everything to that,
it tends to weaken that passion of personality which
is one of the deepest factors of human nature, and
without satisfjring which no theory of life has any
chance of surviving or any right to survive. To
give up oneself for the sake of man, that is impera-
tive ; and for their declaration of that we thank these

117

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

theorists. But to enfeeble or extinguish personality
in doing so, that is not only not imperative, it is
wrong. Nay, it is unnatural. The few who think
they succeed in that will lose their capacity to live
for others, and become isolated in sensualism or in
asceticism. Moreover, to lose our individuality is to
have nothing left to sacrifice. At this point, as at all
others in this theory, we are brought into intellectual
and spiritual absurdities.

So, when we ask of this theory — " Of what use is
the war, the struggle against evil and for good ? " — it
answers, " To benefit humanity " ; and then, when
we ask, "What becomes of the humanity we benefit? "
the answer is, " It perishes." " Why then," we say,
'' the problem is given up. I am in as great a dark-
ness as before. I am to love my kind, to devote my
whole being to its progress, and then, when it is made
perfect, it slips into nonentity ! Lame and ridiculous
conclusion I It has no common sense."

Lastly, there is the answer which we derive from
Jesus Christ. It meets the two factors in human
nature which must be combined in a true answer :
the desire to give up oneself to mankind — the desire
for individuality. Christ retained our individuality,
not towards man, where it would tend to selfish-
ness, but towards God, where it must tend to
become more and more loving. He linked each soul

Ii8

OF WHAT USE IS THE BATTLE?

directl}' to its heavenly Father; He made all life

intensely personal in its relation to God. ** You are

you," He would say, '* always to God. Your life,

your distinct life, is bound up with Him. He has

special love, special aims, a special ideal for you.

The distinct individuality which you have with Him

shall never perish. It begins here, it continues for

ever in eternity. You shall always be yourself for

ever." Individuality was thus secured ; but because

it was secured by union with God, the absolute Love,

it could never become selfish, and it was bound

to deepen in unselfishness. The attainment then

of a perfect individuality in a perfect love — that is

part of the prize of our high calling in Christ Jesus.

And to attain that is worth any struggle, any trouble.

It ennobles all the war. It makes every battle in it

worth waging. It glorifies every hour of the race.

It sanctifies and makes beautiful every trial. It

makes life a march to victory.

Then there is the other side of the matter.

What does Christ Jesus bid us do concerning man ?

What is our relation to the human race ? His life

tells us what that is. It is a relation of absolute

sacrifice of self. He commands, and He lived out

this command, that we should, hour by hour, devote

our life, ever3rthing that we are and have, to the

love of the human race ; to promote its spiritual,

119

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

imaginative, intellectual, and moral growth ; to sur-
render our very being, save that which we have in
God, for the collective whole. And we are only not
to surrender that being which we have in God,
because it is by that — by our union, that is, with
perfect love — that we are enabled to offer up our life
for the cause of our brother men.

This is our duty towards man ; and this is the way
in which Jesus satisfied the desire of sacrifice, and
secured it, as no modem theory has ever secured
it, in the depths of the heart of man.. Then,
when we have tilled the ground of our life for
the love of humanity and made a harvest for men ;
when, if we have been cast out of Eden in our
personal life, we have made a new Eden for others ;
why then, we shall ask no longer, " Of what use
is the battle, what is the worth of living ? " We
shall be far too happy to ask that question. No
power can cast us out of the Paradise of giving our-
selves away. That happiness has no satiety ; its
love brings no isolation with it. It doubles and re-
doubles its incessant joy ; for the work which makes
it brings into our soul all the life of mankind, all the
beauty of Nature, and all the character of God.
Losing our self, we find everything.

This is the work which rejoiced and enkindled
Jesus. When we follow Him in it, we know what

I20

OF WHAT USE IS THE BATTLE?

His saying meant — " I am come that ye might have
life and might have it more abundantly." And then,
we know how well life is worth the living, of what
glorious value is the prize of our high calling in
Christ Jesus.

Nor is this all. There is a wider view. It is not
only a personal joy we gain, but a universal one.
All personal feeling is at the last swallowed up
in our delight in the perfection of the whole. When
we feel that all shall know God, from the least to
the greatest, then to live is of infinite good and joy.
Everything then we do and think by the power of
love is an element of the progress, salvation, and
final glory of the human race. Every grain of our
work grows and is harvested in the happiness of all.

For, in this answer, it is not death at the end
which meets mankind, but life. We, and all, are the
children of immortal Love; and Love is Life. When
the whole history of earth is finished, and we are
burnt up by the sun, or frozen by the exhaustion of
its heat, the history of humanity will have but begun.
Its love, its knowledge, its art, its law, its morality, its
impassioned religion, its development, will pass on-
wards, 'undying, into nobler and nobler forms. The
end of mankind is inexpressibly noble.

What need, then, any longer to ask — Of what use
is the war ? We have our answer. We fight the

.121

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

good fight, we suffer, we endure, we bear with
smiling faith the whips and arrows of outrageous
fortune, we love and labour for men — because of the
prize of our high calling in Christ Jesus. In ever-
lasting continuance, we see the whole of humanity,
and ourselves in it, not only redeemed, but passing
onwards, in corporate and harmonious life, through
dramatic stages of vigorous, peaceful and righteous
development, into absolute union with absolute Love.

122

REST

There remaineth a rest for the people of God,

Hebrews iv. 9

I T is a bold thing to say that we can attain to rest,
* for we live in a world where restlessness seems
master. It might not be so hard to realise rest, if
we passed our life in the quiet of the country, where
life flows like those sleepy rivers which slowly swirl
through the meadows of the fen-lands. But even
there monotony has its own unquiet ; the unevent-
ful life without is often married to an inner life full )
of cravings, indignations and despairs, of passionate ^
restlessness to escape into the movement and stir
beyond — such as a captive feels in prison, who can
hear through his bars the voices of men and women
in the free air, and the rustling of the trees. A
quiet life does not always mean a restful soul.

Still, in such a life we might conceive of peace,
for day after day Nature lays the image of it before
our eyes— but here, in the greater cities of the earth,

the picture is not of rest but restlessness. Often

125

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

I think, as I go through the streets of London, that

I am in that circle of the Inferno where the souls

were driven round incessantly upon the eddying

winds, in pauseless trouble and in bitter hell — save

that love at least is here, and was there — and where

there is any love there is no perfect hell. But our

citied restlessness has only too little love to modify

it. It is another mistress rather than love who most

besets us with her cruel caressing. It is desire of

the things which die with us — which, when they are

grasped, have no permanent delight, and end in the

fierceness of satiety — that drives us round upon the

murky whirl. Money, ambition, fashion, pleasure of

the appetites, craving of the senses ; excitement of

gambling, or of gambling with our life ; our own

unbridled will ; base passions basely wrought into

base action — these are the whirlwinds on which we

are so often borne, by which we are lashed into so

dreadful an activity. It is a terrible sight; and it

is hard at times to realise the quiet movement of

God's will, or those eternal elements of humanity

which live their constant life in men, below the

madness and the storm.

It is a wonderful thing to stand still in a great

English city, and to see flowing by our place the

eager, set, and pushing crowds, hastening as if for

life and death ; and some imagine that they see in

126

REST

that swarming activity the proof and image of the
greatness of England. But the question a stranger
from a nobler world would ask, in wonder indeed, but
the wonder of dismay and pity, would be this : *' Why
are all this little folk in such dreadful hurry, hurry
that looks like trouble ; what are they pursuing, and
what is the end of their activity ? Is it the things
that remain ? If it were I should be conscious of
some rest." And, indeed, he would be right. It is
not greatness that we see but weakness. More than
half of the fierce movement is the desperate battle of
thousands for food, for a roof to cover them, for the
common rights of life — and the battle is good, but
not its desperation. The basis of our society is not
strong but weak. Were it not for the love among
the crowd, it would perish of the feebleness that
despair awakens and confirms. Anotfier part of
that wild haste is made out of the selfish desire for
more and yet more of wealth, which, accumulated,
corrupts the springs of rest, and hands on restless-
ness to those who inherit it. Then, there are those
whom the evil passions drive along — hatred and
impurity, jealousy and anger, fear and sorrow ; and
others who pursue the things which perish while
we touch them ; wasting immortal energies on aims
as unstable as the stormy sea, and the end of which

is fierce disquiet. No greatness for England in

127

THE GOSPEL OF JO Y

that I No, but physical weakness, intellectual decay,
moral loss, spiritual degradation I

And when we go down into the city of our own
heart, a city more real than Paris or London,
we find ourselves in as great a crowd as that
which surges up and down in the huge caldrons
where men furiously seethe together. That crowd
within is as restless and as driven, as varied and
as passionate, as the crowd without. All the streets
1 of our heart are full and whirling. There is the
host of desires rushing to and fro ; there the high-
hearted nobles and great citizens of the soul.
Others are there of lower and fiercer port,
others base as criminals ; and among them, like
warriors, move the great passions, breathing
fire and kindling the desires to their work. And
there are the million thoughts and hopes and
associations, feelings and fancies, which hurry
through our hearts each day and do their business
for evil or for good. And there are duties with
their lawyers, and impulses from without with
their train of vanities and self-reproaches, and faiths
battling with despairs, and arguments clashing with
arguments, and memories which waken tender-
ness or hate; and all the facts which knowledge
has handed us to use, each a personage pushing his

way through the crowd ; and the children the senses

128

REST

have given to imagination ; and the appetites with

satisfied or hungry eyes; and driving his haughty

path among them all, throned on his golden car, rich

with barbaric instincts like gems, the mighty lord of

all evil moves on, dark Self-will, grimly smiling.

Pride, his coarse mistress, sits beside him, and the

seven sins pull them through the hurly-burly — while

flitting through dim streets, far away from the furious

stir, four shadows, half naked and starved, but in

whose eyes is sunshine, appear and vanish, vanish

and appear — Conscience and Beauty, Imagination

and Love, seeking religion and finding her not ; and

with them, unseen and jostled in the hurry, the

angels of the Spirit, hoping, but in vain as yet, that

any one of the throng will look up and see the

quiet stars and wish for peace. Oh, greater and

more unquiet than the streets of London is the

wonderful city within I

This is not an ideal, not even a just condition.

Where there is no conscious repose — not the repose /

of inactivity, but of inward harmony and power, /

resting on an unshakeable foundation — life is in the /

wrong. There is, it is true, a noble disquiet which .

God approves, and which ministers to the progress /

of men. It is when the whole nature is impatient /

in order to accomplish work that it loves, work given '

to us by God's character and useful to mankind. It is

129 I

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

when, behind all action, a divine ideal, creating high
enthusiasm, pushes a man. It is when a man's
will, righteously disturbed by the aimless hurry and
anarchy in his soul, angry with the despotism of
desires and self- regarding passions, resolves to have
all things mastered by the righteousness and love of
God — ^and then, reducing the crowd under righteous
government, urges every one of them on to the goal

• of perfectness. Some call that noble state of mind
disquiet. The term is not the right term. It ought

iv^ to be called the onward march to God.

At any rate it is not usually our disquiet. That
is caused by another kind of determination alto-
gether — the resolute, fixed determination to follow
what we like the best ; to get our own way, no matter
what it costs others or ourselves; and when we
have got it, and afterwards got the trouble which
is certain to follow it, to blame God because He
did not interfere, or circumstances which were too
strong for us, or the thing we call Fate, which
always means our own self-will. Then, what with
the rushes of conscience which at times occur, and
the reproaches of our dim religion, and the sense
that we are sacrificing the best things to the transient,
and the misery we have when we are punished, and
the evil passions which tyrannise over and corrupt

us, and the memories of all we have lost, and the

130

REST

hopelessness of getting right which so much doing
wrong has engendered, and a hundred other things,
we are in that state of inward discord and of weak-
ness, even when we think ourselves most strong,
which is the very essence of a restless life. This
is not divine unrest No ; nor is it Ufe. God has
none of it, and if we reach His rest at last, we
shall know that one moment of it is more divine than
centuries of disquiet, even though the disquiet be the
noble disquiet of the soul. For even that disquiet
means that the nature is out of tune, and apart from
power.

Is that always to be our condition ? Is that the
woeful destiny of man ? For ever tossed, for ever
victimised, for ever weary of himself? No; our
ideal and our destiny is to reach God's harmony and
power by beating out the discord and feebleness in
us — and the attainment of this is rest. It is degra-
dation to battle for ever with the transient and the
sensual, to be the victim of craving and vain desires.
It is our glory to be in harmony with the righteous
life of Him who leads the quiring spheres, to have
with Him the power of creative love ; and, in that
harmony of righteousness and creativeness of love,
to possess the peace which passeth understanding.
Work and rest are together then, nay, they are
identical.

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THE GOSPEL OF JOY

Now, what is the first step towards the winning
of that rest ? It is the giving up of self-will and the
receiving of God's will as our own — and what that
means is clear. It is to make our life at one with
God's character, with justice and purity, with truth
and love, with mercy and joy. It is the surrender of
our own pleasure and the making of God's desire for
us the master of our life. That is the first step— a
direction of the soul to God. The second has to do
with mankind. It is the replacing of all self-love
by the love of our fellow men ; a direction of the
soul to God through man.

These two ways are in reality one ; and there is
no other way, if we search the whole world over, in
which we may attain rest. Simple as it sounds, it
is the very last way many of us seek. We fight
against this truth, and it has to be beaten into us by
pain. Clear as it seems, it is a secret which is as
difficult to discover as the Elixir of Life, but it is so
difficult because we do not will to discover it.

One lived long ago on earth who found it out.

And He put it in this way : Take my yoke upon 3'ou

and learn of me ; for I am meek and lowly of heart ;

and ye shall find rest to your souls. This has a

strange sound, for we do not immediately conceive

how meekness and holiness are bound up with work ;

and without work, in which God finds His rest,

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REST

there can be none of the peace of harmony and
power. But meekness towards God is to willingly
take the will of God for our own ; and the will of
God is this, as Jesus conceived it : *' My meat and
drink is to do my Father's will and to finish His
work ; " and the work of God is this — to seek and
save the lost, to redeem the world by love, to die
for truth and righteousness when we have lived for
them. In lowly submission to that law of life, in
taking that yoke upon us, is the secret of the rest of
the human soul.

And if ever in history we can be convinced by
words of the existence of inward restfulness, we are
convinced that Jesus possessed it. " Blessed are the
pure in heart, for they shall see God." The deepest
thing in that saying is its note of repose ! " Come
unto me all ye who are weary and heavy laden ;
I will give you rest." What must have been the
inward quiet of one who could say so daring a
thing ? When all abandoned Him, " I am not
alone," He said, "the Father is with me." It is
absolute rest of heart. It is no wonder then that
He could give His people, as His last legacy,
peace. '* Peace, my peace I leave with you." Nor
could death, and death with all its terrors, destroy
that divine repose. One brief moment of utter
loneliness and sorrow — as if He could not leave

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unsounded the most unfathomed pain of men — was
followed by the resurrection of steadfast peace.
** Father into thy hands I commend my spirit." Lowly
in heart, He did His Father's will of righteousness
and love, in Himself and for His fellow men;
and fulfilled it so well that the expression of His
peace in death was preceded by the reason of that
peace. " My work is finished." This then is on
earth the rest of the soul of man ; self-will replaced
by God's will, and God's will conceived of as the
labour of love for His children.

But now, there is something more to say. I will
make the matter more personal, and go down to the
roots of rest. Its first root is inward labour for right-
doing. Through that labour we attain power to act
for good with ease, and to resist evil with ease;
and noble power is a quality of rest. When we
have gained that kind of power, we gain inward
harmony and inner harmony is the expression of
divine rest. And from all the three — from the
labour, the power and the harmony of righteousness
— we win creative life, and the intensity of creative
life is the intensity of rest.

Take labour first, labour for righteousness. It is
troublesome at the beginning ; the gate is narrow
by which we enter its way, so narrow that the
struggle needs desperate earnestness ; violence done

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on ourselves. **Take my yoke upon you," said
Jesus. Bow your heads like oxen, bend to your
work, set your whole heart into dragging the
plough.

There are those who cannot bear the trouble of
this labour, who shake off its yoke. They begin, but
the slowness with which, at first, ease in righteous
labour is won, or conquest of temptation made, is too
much for their impatient heart, and in a petulant
and angry hour they seek the ancient pleasure of
doing their own will, of driving their own plough.
But they suffer the punishment of their refusal.
Having once begun the true life, they never can
enjoy the old in the same way. A new unrest is
now added to the satiety which used of old to bring
its trouble into exhausted pleasure — the new
unrest of shame ; the shame of having cared for
the good and ceased to do it ; of having seen the
nobler life and rejected it ; the shame of self-con-
tempt ; the misery of being weak and knowing it.
That miserable shame will strangle all your strength
for good, if you prefer it to the noble effort to regain
the courage for good which you have lost. Break
loose from it in the name of the Father of all virtue.
Get back to the yoke of duty at all hazards, at any
sacrifice. Escape for your life, for, indeed, all your
life is at stake. Will you be, till you die, the victim

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THE GOSPEL OF JOY

of false restlessness, chained in old age to the rock,
with that vulture preying on your heart ?

Be patient ; take on your shoulders the yoke of
righteous labour. The pain will be changed into
strength. It only needs to be endured, to be
seen as the passage to union with God and man,
and it will produce its fruit. When the evening
of the first day on which you resumed your
duty has come, the change will have already been
begun. As you pray with a new feeling in your
heart of nearness to God before you sleep, you will
look back on the day and see that one furrow has
been traced in the evil of the world in which seed
may be sown for good. And then, midst of the
pain, there will come the first sense of real peace,
delicate, scarcely felt, like the earliest of the winds
of spring — gone ere it has almost come — but which
we know is the harbinger of a new creation. Cir-
cumstances, difficulties, suffering, these are enemies
so long as we fear them, or fail to be resolute in
meeting them. But if we meet them, claiming our
right as sons of God to conquest of all things, they
will become our friends, like the wild beasts in the
folk-tale, who, boldly attacked by the hero, joined
him as his allies.

Then, when we see that the very thing which
most tormented us is becoming part of the forces

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REST

in the soul that tend to goodness, we begin to feel
that all the troubles of life are means of rest, are in
the will of God to make us strong, and in strength
restful. A new hope dawns on the troubled waves
of the inner life, and in the hope shines the quiet of
the morning star. It prophesies the coming of that
Sun of righteousness who makes the perfect summer
of a perfect rest. The yoke is then becoming easy,
and the burden light. There is that in such begin-
nings which brings to our weary soul the healing
thought that Becoming will end in Being, that the
blossom of peace will pass on to the ripened fruit.

In this way we arrive at spiritual power. And
power, always a quality of rest, brings us into the
beginning of rest, and leads us into its results. And
the first of these is the conviction that we shall have
perfect rest. "The fulness of what I now partly
feel," we say, ** shall at last be mine. My rest re-
maineth for me." Then the joy of that conviction
doubles the spiritual power we have gained, and
that increase of power intensifies further our feeling
of rest. Our victory over temptation is easier than
before. Conquests which once gave us infinite
trouble are now taken in our stride. Endurance of
battle has become the pleasure of battle. Sorrow
and sin are met with a smile of conquest. Courage
and fortitude give us more delight than pain can

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THE GOSPEL OF JOY

give us grief. The strength is won against which
tribulation breaks as the tempest breaks against a
tower set four square to all the winds of heaven.
That is the rest of the power of God within us.

This is an inward power carrying with it peace.
But there is an outward power which we gain and
which also brings its element of rest. When we
subdue our self through love of man and for man's
sake, we gain a noble power over the hearts of man.
They love us and we bend them to the right. We
inspire them to strive against their wrong because
we love them and win their love. We gain a
greater ease in sympathy, a greater pleasure in
loving, a wiser gentleness, a tenderer pity ; and men
who are lost and weary and sin-ridden, find help
and courage with us, such as the outcast and the
sinner found in Jesus. There is even a greater rest
in that power than in power over oneself. For when
we feel that we are self-conquerors it is a great thing,
but when we feel that we are enabling others to
conquer it is a greater thing. It completes the
peace that comes from the holy power of love.

Now, when that element of rest is gained which is
in power, then we are able to attain the second
element of it, which is inward harmony. Having
power within, and power to overcome evil circum-
stance, and power over the hearts of our brother

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REST

men through love for righteousness, we can now
array our soul into a sweet and ordered music. We
set the faculties under one will into steady move-
ment towards union with God. All desires, hopes,
passions, and impulses are now mastered, like
disciplined soldiers, under the government of love
and righteousness ; and set, in hymnic movement, to
move towards perfection. And after a time, so
beautiful a thing is holy order, each of them comes
to love that end of perfection in God more than they
ever loved any end of their own. All the powers
of the soul have one and the same aim, and love the
same perfect Love ; and the result upon them of this
divine Love, pouring its volume of strength into them
in a swift answer to their love, is the growth of all
of them into their full capacity, both of work and
joy. And that in itself makes restfulness within.
To reach full development is peace. For this is
inner harmony — that each power of the soul, at
rest from wars, at rest from the following of its own
selfish caprices, but at rest in full work — does its
own part in lowliness and meekness, and rejoices in
that mutual subordination of each to all and of all to
each. Finally, the collective result of this, is the
universal movement of the whole being, in solid and
lovely harmony, towards union with Immortal Love.
But this is not all. From these two, power and

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harmony, issues at last the final element which

belongs to the rest that remaineth for the people of

God. Creative force emerges, the immediate and

swift shaping of musical thought and feeling at their

highest power into their finished and easy form ;

accompanied with brilliant joy and rejoicing love.

What vaster hope can we have than this ? It is the

ultimate fulness of perfect life. It is the ideal of

absolute repose.

Strange collocation it seems — of life and rest;

for the most that here we know of what we call

life, we find, we think, in our restlessness. "To

strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." Alasl

that is our ignorance or our feebleness. Could we

have full power over self, and inward harmony, we

should have creative force ; and in the act of creation,

(the capacity for the swift doing of which doubles

with every act of it), we should have unbounded joy ;

the same joy God has when He says : " Let there be

light," and there is light. Yes, when we can shape

into beautiful form love, thought and harmony, and

shape them with easy power — then we shall know

what it means to be alive, and at the same time to

be at perfect rest. The deepest power of rest lies

in the capacity of easy creation. It is our feebleness,

our ignorance, our want of life, our inability to give

fine form to thought and feeling, that make our dis-

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REST

quiet. The more of life, the more of rest ; the swifter

the creation, the more peace ; the quicker the spinning

of the sphere, the quieter the sphere. The depth of

God*s repose is in the depth of His inconceivable I

creativeness of thought and love.

^"^his is the rest that remaineth, no sleepy heaven,

no annihilated consciousness, no still garden of souls,

no folly of death. It is to that haven of rest that

we, poor, unquiet folk, are voyaging onward through

the tumbling seas; and when the faith in it is

greatest, and the labour for it strongest, then we

are most happy in our work on earth. So the vision

at the end is a great activity of power and harmony

and life, moved into incessant creativeness by the

thought and love of God in us and in the universe.

This is the rest of intensity of life ; such as, in

unfrequent hours, we have now and then on earth,

when in fulness of being we do all things well, and

do them with delight. ^

The false ideals of repose, which our weakness

imaged, perish in the light of that conception. The

slothful, the selfish, the material heaven are no

more. ) Our heavenly rest is joyous activity, loving

labour, spiritual progress; and the three are by

their nature incapable of wearin ess. C One day of

such a life is well won at the price of a hundred

years of trouble, and we shall know that well.

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But when we have attained it, we shall only be
the more full of those qualities which Jesus made
the natural companions of the true rest of man —
more eager to do the right, more meek and lowly of
heart. The happy world is not peopled by the
proud, nor by the slothful who know not duty. It
is the humble who are the most active, the lovers of
men who are the best creators. And these, whether
here or in the worlds beyond, are for ever and ever
in heaven.

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But ye are come . , . to the general assembly and

church of the first-bom, which are written in heaven, and

to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men

made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new

Covenant.

Hebrews xii. 23

TO-MORROW, the first of November, is called
the Festival of All Saints, and is kept in
the Roman, Greek and Anglican Churches ; and as
the day comes round, it is well for us, linking our-
selves backward to a great past and realising a long
traditional emotion, to adopt the Feast, and think
of that great assembly of the just made perfect who
are gathered into vital union with God both here
and in the world to come, who live and rejoice in
Him for ever.

It is a good thing to turn aside from our noisy and
troubled life into the quiet and majestic temple of this
thought, and think of the Eternal Holiness. We
are then like one who, having walked for many days
on the dusty and clamorous high road, crosses a

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THE GOSPEL OF JOY

Stile into a deep pine wood, and climbing, finds a
fountain in the peaceful shade ; and rests, quenching
his thirst and forgetting the weary way below ; and
returns refreshed and solemnised to the road, having
within him that which deceives the sadness of the
way. The silence and the beauty of the wood,
the cool and dew of the fountain's life, accompany
him ; and he remembers no more of the bitterness
of pain.

This is the use of a great thought to the soul
distressed by the discordant and multitudinous
claims of life. We carry it with us into dusty lane
and wrangling mart, and fill them with its music.
" Why not then stay in it ? " we say ; " live always
in its noble contemplation ? " That were happy,
perhaps, but it will not be good for us. We are
men, and must, like our Master, go in and out among
men. We dare not sit too long in the silence of the
pines. Our constant place is on the king's high-
way, among our fellow travellers. But we shall
do our work there, not less but more actively, if
from time to time we enter the stillness of a vast
spiritual conception and renew our strength at the
fountain of its faith. Therefore I bring you to-day
into the thought of all the Saints of God, to see
the vision —

Of those just spirits who wear victorious palms.

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THE DAY OF ALL SAINTS

Who are they? Who are these arrayed in white
robes, and whence came they ?

They are the great Apostles and Evangelists of
our race, those who, both heathen and Christian,
have gone forth bearing good news to the heavy-
laden with sin and sorrow; who, bringing the power
of holiness to the heart, have uplifted the life of
men above inward slavery and outward oppression.
They could not take away the weight of cruelty nor
slay the tyrant, but they could make the soul in-
dependent of all the power of the world. " Let there
be holiness," they cried, " and love in the heart ; let
the living Grod be within ; and then whatever out-
ward ill there be, the spirit of man is conqueror."
This was the message of the Evangelists of Jesus.
It has been the message of many who never heard
His name but who have drunk of His spirit ; saints of
God who have made courageous purity dear to men.

Rooted also in saintliness, but not so firmly, are
the Prophets of mankind, those who in all nations
have proclaimed with poetic power the moral and
spiritual truths which are the bread and wine of
human progress. Some indeed have been weak in
holiness and then their prophecy has suffered. But
men are feeble, and holiness is of slow growth.
Nevertheless, even these, out of their very weakness,
have made strength. Those whose struggle for

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

saintliness has been difficult and long, are often in
the end, when they have won goodness, the roost
powerful in love — men who most profoundly move
mankind through their experienced sympathy with
its strife and pain.

Of this mixed character are many of the great
poets, the wisest teachers of the world. They can
not do the evangelist's work, which is concerned
with the daily life of men. But they reveal the
great ideas by which the intellectual and spiritual
life of mankind is made new, by which the beauty
which flows from love of man and nature is recreated
when its previous forms have been exhausted.
They unfold the laws which govern history and
daily life ; they open the eyes of men to the dawn of
new light from God ; they awaken the dead ; they
renew the old age of the world. Mighty and glorious
has been their work, some spiritual, some moral,
some intellectual, and all imaginative ; and high they
stand among all Saints in that general assembly of
the just and true of which we think to-day.

And then, with Apostles and Prophets, are the
Martyrs, a noble army ; those who have died for the
sake of truth, and left shining behind them an un-
quenchable light. These are of all ages, climes
and religions, and many have stood, like Jesus, in a

life and death contest with the accredited religion

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of their day. Nor do they only belong to the
ranks of spiritual truth. There are many who stand
in the ranks of knowledge and of art, of labour and
of law. Have they lived for truths vital to the
human race, and died for them, in faithful witness ?
They are then of the noble army of martyrs, of the
general assembly and church of the first-born.

Apostles, Prophets, Martyrs, it is a vision to
uplift the heart ! And we need it more than ever in
this our day. For, driven by too luxurious a life, or
impelled by indignation with injustice, cruelty and
folly, we are only too ready to say that humanity
is a failure, that men and women are base, that
their lives are nothing but the outcome of material
wants.

It is wise to answer that impotent conclusion
by the vision of all the Saints, by the fact of the
Apostles, Martyrs, and Prophets. They came forth
from our humanity; they are our brothers and
sisters ; they contradict our futile theories of a
world bad at its beginning and worsening to its
close. While we remember them and honour them,
we are capable of equalling them, and we will try.
While we love them, we have a sure hope for
humanity ; and when we believe that they are alive
in God, our hope is changed into a cry of victory.
Nor, indeed, are these, whose names are known, the

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

whole of the multitude of the Saints. Even more
than of them, we think of those whose names we do
not know, of the host of those who have lived for
love, who have wrought righteousness, and died for
truth and freedom since the beginning of the world.
By them also we are what we are. Infinite is the
debt we owe to them, and we are unworthy of God
and man if we do not pay it by making our lives
into new sources of righteousness and love in
behalf of the human race.

Again and again, we are tempted to surrender the
strife, to put off the armour of God, to retreat into
the tents of sloth. *' Why shall we never cease,"
we cry, "to push the oar; why sail with hopeless
longing to shores far off, why face the storms which
girdle the undiscovered land ? Let us alone to eat
the lotus and to sleep!" Then in that hour of
shameful weariness, we see this assemblage of all
the Saints, watching us with faithful and appealing
eyes, all arrayed for the labours of love, who per-
severed to the end, beyond the utmost bound of
human hope, and seeing, we take courage from
the solemn, fair and peaceful vision. Aspiration
rekindles, faith leaps to her feet, the wings of love
expand, we take the shield and draw the sword,
we stand upon the prow of the searching ship.
Battle and effort are in every breath we draw. We

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look on the very face of Jesus, and hear Him say,
" I finished my course, will you not finish yours ? "

We need the vision, for we are only too often
part of a great herd of folk to whom the transient
things of this world are all in all. When we are
tempted to remain among this herd, it is well to
think of our Master, Christ, and of this mighty
assembly of the Saints of God. These are they
to whom the wealth of this world was as dust in
the balance ; of whom fashion made no slaves ; to
whom luxury and extravagance were infamous, and
idleness the worst of thefts; who kept the flesh
subject to the spirit, and the senses to the high
imagination, and the appetites to the moral will ; to
whom the pursuits of selfish life, on which we spend
and weaken our immortal energies, were as the
chaff on the shealing hill. This is a vision which
will lessen the incessant strain of the world on our
conscience and our aspiration, and save us from the
curse of its wickedness and stupidity. The lovelier
and the eternal world will enter our happy soul, and
our life will bless mankind. From everything we do
and say, like radiant light, will flow a song into the
hearts of weary men ; and these are the words of
the song : " The fashion of this world passeth away,
but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever."

Yes, " abideth for ever ! " That also comes home

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THE- GOSPEL OF JOY

to US. The closer we get to humanity the more

we realise the bitterness of man's voyage on the

earth and the apparent triumph of death. Men,

looking the tragedy in the face, grow sadder and

more sad, and then embittered, and then scornful,

and then despairing, unless they see some vision

like that on which we look to-day. But if they see

it clearly, it is not suffering on which they gaze

but the conquest of suffering; not the pains and

torment of the battle but the strength which the

battle stores up as energy in the soul ; not death,

not extinguished thought and quenched love and

dissolved personality, but life everflowing. The

tragedy of life ends in a Divine Comedy, its death

in the immortal life of love. It is not humanity

cast as rubbish to the void which our hearts behold,

but humanity redeemed to holiness, creative in

thought, on fire with love, thrilling at every point

with life, and beloved of God the Father. And the

vision, kindled in the eyes of faith, sets free the soul

from our worst foes to-day, from scorn and from

despair. It is not the "day of all the dead" which

we celebrate, but the day of all the living.

Even if we thought that only those who have

been lovers of God and lovers of men on earth

formed this living army of rejoicing souls ; and that

all the rest who loved themselves alone were anni-

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hilated or reformed into other souls — this faith
would be inspiriting; but it breathes a higher in-
spiration, when, resting on the Fatherhood of God
and believing in the omnipotence of love, we know
God does not give up His children, but makes
saintly in the other world those who have not been
saintly here ; leading them through lawful retribution
into union at last with His Love and Righteousness.
For then, as we look back on the history of the
whole race, we see nothing but Life, in constant
evolution, passing on into higher life.

No vision can be nobler than this, but a greater
glory is added to it when we think that these, thus
made perfect, are in communion one with another ;
and that the foundation of their communion is love of
God and love of all God's children. Undying inter-
communion, joyous interchange of one another's
good, enchanted giving, enchanted receiving of love
— that also i^ contained in the vision. In infinite
diversity of characters there is this unity of love ; in
multitudinous personalities, this one master ; in that
polity whose citizens are like the sand of the sea
for number, and like the stars for difference of bright-
ness, there is this single spirit which makes them
one people, with one law, and one rapture.

In that eternal unity in communion, all that here
divides man from man is as if it had never been —

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THE GOSPEL OF JOY

no separate classes, no clashing interests, no hatreds,
jealousies, envies, no desire to get the better one of
another. If one star differs there from another star
in glory — it is by a greater measure of the love
which unites, not of the selfishness which divides.
No pride or prejudice there makes the castes which
spoil society on earth ; no privileges seized and
kept by selfish power and wealthy cunning there
corrupt religion and law, knowledge, and the com-
munity of nations and of men ; no Churches and
sects, with creeds which split up men into enemies
and establish hatred instead of making charity,
there devour religion ; no distinctions of national
spirit, of colour or of culture, can breathe in the
atmosphere of the assembly of the Saints. All are
equal in duties and therefore equal in rights. All
are free because all love ; all are brothers, for all are
children of the Father. There is but one nation, the
nation of mankind ; one Church, the Church of God ;
and that is a mighty revolution when it is set face to
face with its denial — modem society. This is the
vision of All Saints* Day; and I challenge all the
new religions to match it in nobihty and beauty.

Are we fit within to belong to that world which
exists here on earth as truly, though not so fairly,
as it exists beyond this sorrowful star? As life
goes on, are we growing in that love of God which

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means love of His character — of justice and pity, of
longsuffering and gentleness, of giving all we have
to give, of truth and righteousness, of the things
which by their very nature are infinite and eternal ?
Is that desire to save others, which was in Christ
Jesus, the master joy of our heart ; so that if we
be set in the other world to redeem by love those
who have lost themselves on earth, no work could
give us greater pleasure? Is the sense of com-
munion through love with the saintly spirits of un-
known worlds, with the Apostles, Prophets, Martyrs,
and lovers of the race, deepening in our heart ?
Are we getting rid of the prejudices of caste and
colour, of education and nationality, of the follies
which are based on privilege, of the intolerance
of isolating sects and Churches, of all that makes
for separation and violates the unity of humanity ;
living in the world that is beyond the divisions
of capital and labour, noble and not noble, learned
and unlearned, pharisee and outcast, guilty and not
guilty ; and working out our life on the one and only
ground on which, before God Almighty, we stand — on
the foundation of our common humanity, our common
childhood to the Father? Then we shall not be
strangers, when we pass the border of that high
land, among that mighty host whose cry is this —
" Man is One, as God is One, in Love."

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This is one of the great conceptions for which we
ought to live and act and speak. It is the tendency
of religious bodies to isolate themselves from the
world they call profane, to separate themselves from
the greater social movements, to shut themselves
up, when they are reproached or attacked, sometimes
in pride, sometimes in anger, sometimes in silent
chill, sometimes in a too great conservatism. We
should always guard against that tendency, and con-
tending against every form of it, open our souls
wider and wider to everything which is human ;
while we answer all attacks by a greater and ever
greater practice of the grace and love of Jesus.
There ought to be no body of men more in sympathy
with all that is human than those who have estab-
lished themselves on the foundation of the unex-
elusive Fatherhood of God, and who with a full
heart believe that, when humanity is finished, all its
members shall be Saints of God. For that belief we
live and labour, and in that belief we shall die.

Its completion belongs to the world to come, for
all the past humanity is there being wrought towards
that close, and we know that the present humanity
will need long and divine handling; but for the
future humanity we have a greater hope. We look
forward to a world of men, here on this earth, who
may be much nearer to the divine love and holiness

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THE DAY OF ALL SAINTS

than we have yet conceived. It is diiEcult to
imagine this higher world, face to face as we are
with the noise and battle of a thoughtless and
cruel society. We are often ready to despair;
but we hope when we look back at history. Into a
world steeped to the lips, as the Roman world was,
with caste ideas and privileged arrangements, this
thought of the intercommunion of all nations, classes,
and societies in One Father, each man sharer of the
same divine spirit and inflamed by one love, was
introduced ; it came like a ray of light into thick dark-
ness. It grew till the darkness thrilled with light, till
the world was new bom in the Spirit, and the poor
had the kingdom of God. It was the first step
towards our latter-day conception of an international
unity; and through all the wars which devastated
Europe and the wickedness which cursed the Church
— it still preserved, and in revolution after revolution
confirmed, the idea of the unity of all men in a
righteous and loving God. It still lives on, and is
the undying enemy of the tyrants of mankind.
There, under its banner, is our post; and in that
more open world of thinking which we are approach-
ing in England, it should be our endeavour to get
nearer and nearer on earth to that human union of
all in divine love, which exists in heaven, and is its
rapture.

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THE GOSPEL OF JOY

This IS not so Utopian as it was. The last
hundred years have made a vast difference, and the
last thirty years have deepened the difference,
between the old and new conceptions of society, as
they have between the old and new conceptions of
Christianity. That which would have been laughed at
by our grandfathers as impossible, and if possible
subversive of society — the comity of nations, the
disappearance of disunion among men, the actual
brotherhood of men — has partly become a matter of
experience, is partly a matter of deep desire; and
thousands are working steadily for its fulfilment.
Nearer than before, but as yet further than we
wish, is the day when the will of love shall be
done on earth as it in heaven.

It is something for the old to^ know, before they
depart, that the course of the world tends more swiftly
to that end. It is well to die and leave behind on
earth, not darkness but the light of dawn, and with
that faint light in our eyes to join the great assembly
of the Saints and talk of what earth is doing. It is
better still for those who have twenty years before
them. Let them hold their torch on high and pro-
claim by voice and deeds that the day of the Lord
draws more nigh. It is best of all for the young.
There is so much for them to do, so much to think
strongly and to feel nobly, that their life is certain

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THE DAY OF ALL SAINTS

— if they be faithful and true to righteous love — to
be filled to the brim with high passion and keen ex-
citement burning steadily, fed with the oil of prayer,
and inspired by faith in God the Father of man-
kind. They will see, I trust, more than the light of
dawn. They will look with joy on the sun risen on
the earth ; they shall hear a multitude whom no man
can number praising God for a lovelier, freer and
juster society ; and they shall banish to their native
night those ideas of modern society which the
mighty conception of the Communion of Saints now
contradicts and will hereafter overthrow.

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Follow me.

St. Luke ix. 59

THE reasoning intellect of man, with all its great
and useful capacities, has no capacity for
knowing two matters — the things which belong to
love, and the things which belong to beauty ; that is,
the things which belong to religion, and the things
which belong to art. The very highest intellect,
working only within itself and by the fullest possi-
ble use of its means, is totally incapable of compre-
hending what the love of God is in the soul, or what
losing one's life for others is ; and is equally incap-
able of comprehending or knowing what beauty is,
or how it lives and moves in poetry, in music, or in
the other arts. The world in which these things
abide and act is far beyond its ken. Indeed these
two sets of things — those which have to do with God
as love, and our love for Him and one another;
and those which have to do with beauty, are one.
All things that belong to love are beautiful, and

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all things that are beautiful have their source in
love.

If the statement that the methods used by the
reasoning faculty have no application and are of no
use in the world of religion, we might fairly chal-
lenge it. Such a uniqueness would lead us to dis-
trust it at first hand. But it does not stand alone.
As the religious man lives by love of an invisible
righteousness and love which directly deal with him,
but his belief in which no intellectual power he
possesses can either analyse or demonstrate — so the
artist lives by faith in an infinite and immeasurable
beauty of which he only knows a part, but of which
he is certain he will know more and more, if he be
faithful in pursuit of it. And this beauty he also
knows that he cannot analyse, nor can he demonstrate
its existence. His knowledge of it is gained only
by love of it, not by understanding it. In pursuing
it, he uses no intellectual powers ; nay, he frequently
violates or transcends the methods and the laws
those, powers lay down as necessary. The state-
ment then made with regard to the world of religion
is not unique. It is equally true with regard to the
world of art. Blake was curiously right when he
said : ** Christianity is art, and art is Christianity."
Religion can be expressed in terms of art, and art

in the terms of religion.

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THE SIMPLICITY OF CHRIST

Hence, we are bound to say (and the present time
calls on us to say it as clearly as possible), first ;
That those intellectual formulas of religious truth
which we call creeds, confessions and schemes of
salvation, which are the work throughout not of the
spiritual but of the logical faculty, are matters of
which we ought to get rid ; if they impose themselves
on us as necessary for the religious life, or as perma-
nent or infallible forms of spiritual truth. Secondly,
That till we get rid of their tyranny, we shall not
be able to simplify our life, or to get down to the root
ideas of the life of God with man or of man with God.

One thing, however, the intellect has done for
religion at the present time. It advances, like our
other powers, and as it advances it clears away a
great deal that it once clung to as absolutely true.
It made scientific schemes of salvation, fixed and
logical formulas of truth, elaborate arrangements of
doctrines, proofs of the necessity of miracles for a
basis of faith. All these the scientific and critical
work of the intellect has in the last sixty years
done its best to clear away, and we owe it sincere
thanks for the honest work it has performed in its
own sphere. We are now able to see spiritual
truths without the veils which the scholastic intel-
lect had woven round them. All that the reasoning
faculty employed on spiritual things made, and

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which ecclesiastics infected with the worldly desire
of power imposed on us as necessary for salvation,
the same reasoning faculty, in its amusing way, has
now unmade. The only thing it retains from the
old time is its desire of power ; and it does its best,
in the hands of those philosophic, ethical and scien-
tific persons who ignore a spiritual being in man, to
retain that power by insisting on its own supremacy
as absolutely necessary for a happy, wise, and even
a good life.

The intellect has thus devoured its own children.
A number of dogmas, of creeds which confined
illimitable ideas in limited forms of thought, of
theories with regard to the nature of God, the
relation of persons in the Godhead, the twofold
nature in Christ, the infallible authority of the Bible
or of the Church, the logical necessity of miracle,
the nature of man in relation to the universe — these
and many others were the creation of the critical
and analysing intellect of man working in the realm
of its own vanity. With equal vanity, the same
critical intellect, having brought them forth and
educated them, has now eaten them up, and smacks
its lips with satisfaction over the work it has done.
It is a very unnatural mother. But it is a way it
has, and it is now employed in bringing forth new

children, in making new formulas, in educating new

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THE SIMPLICITY OF CHRIST

baby-theories of religion and of morals, in labelling

and correlating the whole spiritual universe, one

single imagination of which it is unable to see or

comprehend. We may be sure that before fifty

years are over, it will play the cannibal again among

the new theories it has invented with regard to

what it calls " religious " or " ethical " truth ; and all

the more quickly because its present theories are for

the most part negative, and like children that have

no individuality are not likely to engage their

mother's affection.

It has destroyed all that it chooses and chose to

call Christianity, and now it says that Christianity

does not exist. But the real fact is, that what it has

destroyed is not Christianity, but its own scheme of

Christianity ; and a very good thing it is that it has

wrought this destruction. In the hands of the

Jewish priesthood and afterwards of the Christian

priesthood, it hated spiritual truth of old because

spiritual truth claimed to be independent of it. It

seized it, claimed to analyse it and define it for all

men ; froze its free waters into icy intellectual forms ;

and invented, to support these, laws and ceremonies.

These, it said, are unchangeable and permanent.

Then it allied itself with imperialism and the class

systems of the world, and, greedy of power, imposed

its schemes and doctrines on the spirit of men, and,

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menacing damnation, debased and terrified the heart
of humanity.

It called its work the Christian religion ; but what
it invented had nothing whatever to do with Christ ;
and the practice it carried out blackened and violated
the character of Jesus. In its exclusiveness, in its
negations, in its law of sin and death, it contradicted
at almost every point the law of the universal love
of God, and of man's universal love of his brothers.
And now, we, who care for Christ, and whose
deepest life is in following what He said, only smile
at the destruction the critical intellect has wrought
upon its own past work ; and think that the attack
it is so proud of making now on the things of
the spirit will be equally impermanent. Once it
was too positive, and tried to force us to believe
that its logical arrangements were spiritual truth ;
now it is too negative and says we are not to believe
in the spiritual at all. One is as foolish as the other.
The fact is that it does not matter a pin what the
reasoning and critical faculty, working alone, says
in support of or in attack on spiritual truth. It is
equally incompetent, whatever side it take, to settle
any spiritual question, or to lead us to know any-
thing vital about God, and our life with Him.

Spiritual truth becomes ours by love, not by
reasoning. We must love God or we shall never

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THE SIMPLICITY OF CHRIST

comprehend Him. Man must be loved or we shall
never know human nature. It is only when we love
the spiritual ideas — those which afterwards we come
to call spiritual truths — that we begin to believe that
they have been given to our nature, and developed in
it from within us, by One whom in time we learn to
call our Father. Immortal life must be loved before
its full meaning opens before us. Sacrifice of self
must be loved for its own sake and done for love
of it, before we know that it is life eternal. Righte-
ousness must be loved for itself before we can be
filled with it. Jesus our Master must be loved
before He shall seem the worthiest to be loved,
before we know His life to be the life of the soul.
Love is first, and on love comes knowledge in these
matters. Only love — living, enkindled, active
emotion, in which we lose ourselves in joy and
peace — can know and do the truths which bind God
to Man and Man to God ; which make, that is,
religion.

Is the reasoning faculty, then, of no use in matters
pertaining to religion ? It is of use within its own
sphere; in matters which can be investigated,
analysed, criticised or demonstrated. It is the part
of the intellect to record the history of religious
movements and of religious dogma, and these afiairs

have much interest for the intellect. It is sometimes

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useful to analyse the various aspects of religion in
the minds of men, and the different forms into which
distinct nations have cast their schemes of religious
life. The history of doctrines is entertaining ; it
reveals the fancifulness of humanity, it convinces us
of the manifoldness of human nature. Even for the
inner life of the soul, it is at times needful to illus-
trate, divide, compare, to place in different lights,
by means of the philosophic intellect, the truths
which the spirit of love alone can comprehend ;
but we must beware lest we fall in love with this
intellectual work and think it spiritual ; for when
these things are thought to be in themselves
religious, of any vital importance to the life of God
in the soul, they drown, in the end, that life, they
shut out God, and they paralyse that love of man
which is the natural result of love of God the Father.
Moreover, when these things are thought to be
spiritual, or to have any real importance for the
attainment of divine truth, they cause an unutter-
able trouble and weariness — the very thing the
Christian life ought to take away. We labour for
that which is not needful for goodness in life ; for
that kind of knowledge which hides Christ and over-
clouds the vision of God ; for that which satisfieth
not ; we pursue, year after year, an apparent know-
ledge which produces in the end only ruinous pride

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THE SIMPLICITY OF CHRIST

or passionless despair. Nor is this the only result

of this false way of seeing religion. We are drawn

away by it from realities to unrealities, from what

is vital to that which is dead, from what is needful

for human life to that which is not needful, from

the work of love to the idleness of argument. We

spend most uselessly a mass of time on reasoning

concerning God and His truth; whether we can

know Him or not; and if we had asked Jesus

about what we had done, He would have answered :

"That was not needful, nor had it to do with the

matter. The thing is simple ; Blessed are the pure

in heart, for they shall see God." And were He

asked further He would have replied : ** I am the

good shepherd ; and I know mine own and mine

own know me, even as my Father knoweth me and

I know the Father." And the reason He knew His

sheep was love of them. " I lay down my life for

the sheep." And the reason why God knew Him

and He knew God, and why His own knew Him, was

one and the same — Love, and nothing else. And

to attain knowledge of the things of the spirit in

that way of love is the source of infinite joy and

rest in life, of peace and praise within.

It is different indeed when we attempt to reach

the things of the spirit through argument. To

transfer them from the region of love and of clear

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being into the region of the intellect and its illusions,
is, like all foolish things — that is, things which are
against the nature of the universe — the source of
infinite anger and weariness. We know what hap-
pens when any great misfortune or circumstance
of passion which touches the depths of life gets the
mastery over our thought and will. All the think-
ing in the world will not disperse it ; on the contrary,
it only deepens the tyranny of the trouble. Yet, in
spite of our knowledge of the uselessness of our
thinking, we cannot cease it ; we are like the worn-
out horse who moves round the pillar in the mill —
but we are sadder than he. He knows that the
mill-stones within go round, but we know more ; we
know we do not grind corn, but chaff. We come
to no conclusion. Yet, in spite of this knowledge,
we are lashed by our enslaved will into incessant
movement round our sorrow, till the world is
sickened to us, and we are furious with our slavery.
If we could but break the chain which binds us to
ourselves, and working in the quiet fields of humanity
drink of the brook of self- forge tfulness, we should be
happy ; escaping from our pain ; learning to admire
and love ; feeling for the sorrows and joys of others
far more than for our own ; impassioned for beauty
in God, in nature, and in man ; no longer lost to

divine imaginations in the labyrinth of our own self-

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THE SIMPLICITY OF CHRIST

sorrows. We cannot love these splendours of God,
for we are in love with our self; and self-love is
the very contrary of love.

This, which is true in the realm of the affections,
is true in the realm of the intellect when it thinks
it can investigate or prove spiritual truth. Men,
and women even more than men, (for they are more
enslaved by the understanding than men,) cannot
leave off arguing about religious truths ; wholly
enthralled by the questions they create ; and all the
more enthralled because they are strangely vain of
their cleverness in this debate. Day after day they
read and argue and talk till they are dazed.
Article after article, theory after theory, book after
book — each adds a new confusion, a new torment.
It is a piteous sight. They wheel and plod round
their post, grinding their chaff into dust, till the
world within them is sick, and the world without
them is lost ; and nature and man scarcely ever say
anything to them. There is but little faith or
hope, or admiration, or love, or joy left in their
lives. They are choked with the dust of their own
intellect employed on matters with which it has
nothing to do. At last they are too wearied to
think any more, and there are those who die of
this grinding folly or creep to the grave, death in
their heart. Others escape, and of these there are,

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at the present time, two types especially who are in
sharp contrast one to the other.

The first of these breaks the chain, and, full of
self-mockery, looks with opened eyes on all the
chaff he has been grinding. " And this," he says,
" I once thought to be corn ! To this I have given
my life, my thinking, even what of love and imagina-
tion I possessed. I turn away from it now with
disenchantment, with pain, with hatred. There is
nothing to feed me here, nothing to kindle the old
life and joy which I had when I was young. Every-
thing which seemed to be religious truth, is empty
husks, not fit for the swine to eat. I will believe
and hope and love these things no more."

And so he wanders far away, and, as his nature or
his humour is, lives his life without God, or hope of
immortality, or care for the ideal aims of the spirit ;
sometimes alone in self-scorn, sometimes with dim
regrets which he drowns in work or in pleasure,
sometimes in selfishness — while others of a different
temper turn to labour for man, and to that life of
sacrifice which is all the more noble in them, because
they now think that man shall perish like the snows
of yesterday. There are many ways men take the
ruin of their old religious life, or what seemed their
religion ; but however they take it, they never return
to their first position. What they get is something

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THE SIMPLICITY OF CHRIST

else, if they get anything. Men cannot embrace a
ghost once they know it to be a ghost.

But there is a question this type of men might ask
themselves, if they were not too weary, if they had
some religious temper in them. Instead of saying,
"There is no such thing as any spiritual truth,"
they might say, '* Perhaps I have made a mistake.
May there not be some corn that I can grind ? Is
there nothing I can do less full of weariness — some-
thing human, simple, natural, loving; less matter
of argument, more matter of feeling rightly; not
needing thinking about at all, but only joyous and
ailectionate action among human creatures that I
love." So he might ask, but alas ! he has so long
practised only his understanding, and is now so
proud of its working at complex problems in his
own mind, that it does not occur to him to find
things through love, or to care for what is simple.
Cumbered and troubled by reiterated analysis of
life and metaphysical problems, he cannot enter into
the lives of men and women, nor arrive at that
childlike heart which alone enters into the kingdom
of God. " My intellect must be convinced," he says.
Alas ! after so many years of failure is he still so
blind ? Has he not yet learnt that as long as he
sets the mere intellect to work on spiritual truth,
he will have no corn to grind ; that as long as any

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THE GOSPEL OF JOY

pride in his reasonings remains he cannot have love
of man ?

What he does not do, the other, the second type,
adventures. He, too, breaks his chain ; he, too,
looks at all the weary work he has gone through
and knows that it is illusion; he, too, finds out
that he has only ground chaff into dust.

*' And I seemed to love it all so well," he says,
"and yet could it be loved at all? How could I
love argumentative criticism, analysis of doctrines,
logical schemes, and the labour of the understand-
ing ? They could not love me in return. I begin to
feel that all these weary years I have only loved
my own self — the pleasure I had in the working of
my own brain, my own intelligence and its exercise.
And is love of self, or of self-thinking, love at all ?
Must not love, to be love, love something other
than one's own, and live, not for the sake of intel-
lectual vanity and satisfaction, but for the sake of love
itself? Does not God ask us to love Him, and to
love man, in order that we may cease to think about
our own thoughts, and to be proud of them ; in order
that we may escape from the shadow of ourselves ?
Is not that escape from one's self the very root of
the true spiritual life ? That I will now try ! "

" How wearisome, how corroding, how exacting,

what an endless round it has been I How complex,

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THE SIMPUUTY OF CHRIST

how bitter, how unrested, how unbeautiful ! How
eagerly I have made my own whip, and how I have
scourged myself to keep up the pursuit of myself;
and all the time I never saw any spiritual truth —
only my own image of what it was. But that is
no reason why there should be no spiritual and
imaginative truth, nor why I should not find it. The
discovery I have made that I have taken the wrong
road should urge me forwards to find the right.
Therefore I will not give up my search for God,
and the truth about Him, and about man. There
is a ceaseless whisper in my heart which drives me
on ; which tells me love is to be found, that faith
and hope are alive, that forgetfulness of self is
possible ; that doing the life which flows from these
noble powers is in my power. I must know God ;
and know Him as my Father and the father of my
fellow men. And when I know Him, I will walk
with Him in and out among men as one who loves
on earth walks with another whom he loves."

And so, like one set free from a gloomy prison,
not knowing well where to go, but with faith in
coming light and hoping for coming life, he left
the prison-mill where he had ground at chaff so long ;
and rejoicing, and with his heart open and awake,
passed through the sweet fields, in the fresh dew of
the dawn of a new life, by the running stream and

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THE GOSPEL OF JOY

through the whispering conii until he came upon
the lake of Galilee — and standing by the waters,
his soul lost in prayer, he met with Jesus. " Who
art thou," he cried, ''whose look is so untroubled ?"
And he was answered — " I am Jesus of Nazareth
and I will give you rest."

" O Master, they say many things about you, and
I have been wearied with much thinking, but I
would fain know God." And Jesus answered :
" Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see
God," and as He spoke. He looked as if He beheld
the shining of God's countenance. "And is that
all," the questioner replied, " shall I have no labour
of argument, no decision to make between this
doctrine and that doctrine ? " And Jesus answered,
for He saw that the vanity of the understanding
was still with this disciple — *' Learn of me, for I am
meek and lowly of heart, and thou shalt find rest to
thy soul." "So it is true," the other said, "it is
with a child's heart of love and trust that I must
enter the kingdom of God. I will try what that
will do. I will love, and live by love.*' "Yes,"
said Jesus, " thou hast been cumbered with much
thinking, but one thing is needful. Choose that
good part which shall not be taken away from
you. Choose love of the Father and love of the

children."

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THE SIMPLICITY OF CHRIST

But said the questioner, " How far shall I love,
for I have heard of a hundred limitations ? " And
Jesus answered, " Love your enemies, love them
that hate you, and thou shalt be the child of thy
Father in heaven, who maketh His sun to shine
upon the evil and the good, on the just and the
unjust." "Then God is Love indeed," replied the
seeker, ** and if I love and forgive, I must know Him,
for I shall be like Him ; — but yet, will He receive
me, for I have fed on husks, and followed my own
will, and put away what I knew to be right ; and
now that I have come to myself, will He accept His
wilful child ? Can He forgive, can He love me ? "

And then he heard, told in his heart, the story

of the prodigal son*s retuni, and with what rapture

he was welcomed. " But," pursued the questioner,

"that is just what a mother on earth would do,

whose cnly son had remembered her love, and fled to

home at last. Is God like that? Any child can

know Him, then, and love Him. It is simple above

measure ; and I — I have spent years in asking if He

could forgive at all ; or if He could, in what fashion

He could manage it ; what atonement, and how an

atonement could be made ; what ordinances I must

fulfil, what doctrines believe in, what ceremonies

go through ; what Church, what confession I must

cling to ? "

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THE GOSPEL OF JOY

Ah," said Jesus, ** the kingdom of God is within
you. Why did you not look into your own heart,
and ask what love would urge. If you lost one sheep
out of a hundred, what would you do ? "

" I could not bear it," he replied ; '* how could I
leave it to die in the snow when I could save it ? I
would seek it till I found it, and bring it home with

joy."

" So also feels your Father in heaven," said Jesus
Christ.

" Then," answered the other, " my love is God's
love, only less than His ; and all I justly and simply
feel is His also. He is within me ; I am His
and He is mine. I never can be parted from Him
while I love. And that is all — the simplest, most
beautiful, most human thing in the world — to be
one with Love, to live among my brothers as God
lives with me."

And Jesus smiled and said, "Yes, that is All.
Think no more about it, do it for my sake."

And when the questioner lifted his eyes, the quiet
figure was no longer there; only the glimmering
level of the lake, and the morning that dreamed
upon it. But he needed no more. He had heard
the one universal truth. The deep foundation of
spiritual life had been laid within him. He loved,
and he knew at last through love. The sun had

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THE SIMPLICITY OF CHRIST

arisen in his heart. He forgot his thoughts, his
torment, his care and his sins ; he forgot himself.
God, Man, and Nature filled his heart with love,
and in the love was life everlasting. And he heard
the lark in his heart singing : " Rejoice evermore."
And he saw the daisies at his feet, bringing beauty
into all places of the earth, and their eyes said :
" Be lowly of heart ; bear witness everywhere to the
simplicity of love ; and you will make beauty blossom
in human life, and in your own heart, and in the
world to come." And over the water, borne by
every ripple of the morning, came the voice of Jesus :
'* Follow, follow me. Take up thy cross and follow.
Let not your heart be troubled. Be of good cheer,
I have overcome the world."

i8i

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EASTER DAY

He is net here ; for he is risen, as he said,

St. Matthew xxviii 6

WHEN the Christian Church, long after the
death of its Master, looked back upon His
life, and on all that since His departure had
happened to fill the hearts of His followers with
heavenly joy and hope, they made, or rather there
grew up among them, in order to express their deep
emotion, the poetic story with which the birth of
Jesus was celebrated. It is a story in which the
shepherds of the hills and the wise men of the East,
and the host of heaven are all united in one
exalting joy. Out of the hearts of the poor who
flocked into the open doors of the Church of Christ
and found peace and pleasure of heart in the love of
Jesus, flowed the wonderful beauty of this ancient
poem. The poor in it were visited by heaven ;
into the souls of men who had none of the joys of
this world poured the melodies of celestial happiness.
There were none to notice this poor clan, none to

185

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

care much whether they lived or died. Save the
few that in rude huts looked for their return from
the hills of Bethlehem — women as poor as they
and as little known — they had none to love them.
But the heavens were opened for them; the glory
of the Lord shone round about them.

The story represented the thoughts, the emotions
of the multitudes of the poor that in the first and
second centuries heard for the first time that they
were blessed ; that God loved them, that a Saviour
had died for love of them. In every lane of the
Greek cities and of Syrian towns, in great Rome
itself, in the quarries and the workshops where the
slaves toiled and died, among the oppressed who
had no hope on earth — in the hearts of these for
whom the great and learned cared nothing — there
was now unspeakable riches which the world could
not take away, deep peace, immortal joy, undying
love. They saw what priests and kings saw not ;
they saw the face of God, and It was the face of a
Father. The Angel of the Lord came upon their
misery, and the glory of the Lord shone round about
their daily life. They heard all day the multitude of
the heavenly host praising God, and saying — Glory
to God in the highest.

In the deadly mines, in the midnight of the prison,

in the fierce death of the amphitheatre, the counte-

i86

EASTER DAY

nance of Jesus for whom they died smiled on them,
and His voice spoke comfort. Eye saw not, and
ear heard not what their spirit heard and saw.

This poem then of the Nativity of Jesus recorded
their daily experience, and that experience was
exalted joy. And with their own delight was
mingled — and this also is embodied in the story —
their deep conviction that their joy was shared by
the spiritual beings of the larger world beyond this
troubled earth. The angels felt with them; the
infinite host of the Blessed rejoiced in heaven in
the happiness of their companions on the earth.

The same thoughts belong to the stories which
soon took form around the belief on which Christi-
anity rests — " That Jesus is alive in the world
beyond this world, that Death had no power to
destroy His personality." In all the stories which
are told in the Gospels of the Resurrection, the one
great point is the overwhelming joy which filled the
hearts of those who knew that Jesus was not dead,
but alive for evermore with God ; that they, with
him, were the children of eternal life.

And well might they rejoice, for, indeed, that which
seemed defeated and slain on Calvary — the teaching,
the personal power, of Christ over the soul — ^had
risen again into a wonderful life ; was born again in
the heart of humanity to deathless life and power

187

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

and love. Nor was this all. As in the first range of
stories, so in the second, it was not only earth that
rejoiced, but also heaven ; not only men that were
comforted, but the host of heaven itself. The
Angels are represented at the tomb, and cry with
exultation : " He is not here ; He is risen."

There are those who smile, even with some
scorn, at the belief that there is a world of spiritual
beings who feel with us on earth and take part in
our history. But if there be such a living world, it
is surely natural that they should care for us, since
Love is the very breath of their life. And I believe
that in the hearts of all the high spiritual creatures,
there is a knowledge of the spiritual history of man-
kind ; and that they follow with faithful sympathy
the progress of the individual and of the race. And
if so, it is but natural to think they will have their
special delight and praise at certain times when the
great events of the history of our slow salvation take
their beginning and their end ; when, as at the
Easter-tide, Jesus, having accomplished His mission,
entered victorious into the spiritual world beyond the
grave. Yes, whenever man or woman is bom whose
destiny it is to bring man nearer to God, to save the
sorrowful and the lost; whenever a great warrior
for God lays down his arms and enters into his
peace, leaving salvation for men behind him — there

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EASTER DAY

is knowledge of it elsewhere than upon earth, a great
sound of delight in a higher world. It pleases me
to think that if there is daily joy among the heavenly
hosts over one sinner that repenteth, there are out-
bursts of more solemn, splendid and widespread
rejoicing in the heavenly realms when the great
hours of Redemption strike in the history of
humanity.

At Easter-time then, as at Christmas-tide, our
thoughts are borne into a world of joy beyond this
sorrowful surface ; and, whatever be our outward
pain, we are filled within with rejoicing. It is laid
upon us as a duty that life ought to have a basis of
joy. It was so with Jesus. None suflfered more
than He ; but in the depths of His spirit there was
always rapture, always the song of the heavenly
host. Few have borne more of the ills of life than
St. Paul. Yet, he could cry — "Rejoice evermore."
No touch of the Cross fell upon him that did not
bring with it the travelling by of some inward
delight. The passage from Calvary is always
towards Easter. The hours of death in life are
succeeded by the hours of resurrection. Below
the pains of our outward being lies deep the joy
which is the true foundation of life. This is our
Christmas lesson, and our Advent truth.

It is a lesson and a truth which is too far away

189

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

from us. In the world in which we live, we
encourage the opposites of joy, and lose half the
use of life. We weigh ourselves down with burdens
of sorrow which are the results of our selfish
thoughts and selfish desires ; and every one of these
burdens lessens our power to live righteously in
ourselves, and to live usefully for others.

(i) We are men, we are told, destined to sorrow.
This is a common cry, and the worst of it is that
our society seems to pride itself upon this cowardice,
and to take pleasure in representing it in literature,
in the pulpit, in the press, in art, and in conversa-
tion. We dash our natural happiness with self-
introspection, with recollections of sorrow which we
nurse like beloved children. We stain our pleasures
with monotonous repetition till we reacii satiety ;
and then we blame destiny. And after that folly,
we put all joy away with philosophic contempt, than
which there is nothing more stupid ; or with religious
gloom, than which there is nothing more irreligious ;
and I declare, that, terrible as the suffering of men
and women is in this world, yet that more than
half its worst elements arises out of their wilful
indulgence in self-torture.

Most of our pains would be cleared away if we
would let ourselves alone ; if we were human enough
and divine enough to have our highest interest and

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EASTER DAY

excitement, like that of the angel hosts, in the good
and happiness of others than ourselves. God is
blamed for our misery ; fate is blamed ; anything is
blamed but our own self-involvement. The true
thing to blame is our own gloomy, greedy self,
hugging our pain like a fetish, worshipping it within,
sacrificing to it, like a savage, one natural joy after
another, one use of life after another. The idolatry
of pain and grief, whether it be personal, or that
common pretence of sorrow for the miseries of man
— is one of the most debasing of idolatries.

The sooner we are ashamed of this folly and
wrong the better. That is a fetish we should fling
into the flame of love; and when we have done
that boldly, we can go forth, no longer sympathising
with our own sorrow, to sympathise with the sorrows
of other men. In doing that, we shall soon reach
joy, soon be able to cry — "Glory to God in the
highest ; " soon be able to say — *' My life is not dead,
but like my Master's, is arisen. My futile sorrows
lie, like the grave-clothes, in the tomb, but I am
alive in love for evermore."

(2) There is another element in modern society

which stands in the way of joy fulness in life, and that

is the mastery which selfish work has taken over life.

Work is one of the best things in the world, and it

is urged on us by Christ. But, by itself, and done

191

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

by men only for their own private advantage, it is
often a curse ; and Jesus balanced it by such phrases
as this, " Take no overthought for the morrow ; the
morrow will take thought for the things of itself."

It is this balancing weight in the scales that a
great deal of modem society has lost ; and with its
loss, joy has fled away. The fanatic asceticism of
work in which so many spend their whole days is so
fierce that it renders all love of man and all delight
in Nature impossible. I do not know which is most
wonderful and most sad — ^the sight of the idlers who
do nothing, or of the workers who enjoy nothing
but working for themselves. Both are enslaved.
They have given their hearts away to the world, a
sordid boon ! Both have the world's reward— ^the
idler his pleasure, the worker his success ; and both
have also the spiritual punishment — loss of the true
use of life, and the inward joylessness which darkens
their declining years.

I do not speak of the idlers. We look on them

with wonder and pass them by. But when we are

absorbed in making a fortune ; when we give the

whole of life to reading ; when we cannot break into

the daily round of business ; when we give every

energy we possess to the household ; when all our

work is for ourselves alone and our family ; when

the end of all work is limited to our own purse, our

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EASTER DAY

own iotellect, our own gratification, our own repute ;
when self-interest fills every hour — work (which by
itself is neither good nor bad, which is good or bad
only in reference to its end, and only good when it
ends beyond ourselves) is one of the worst successes
of life, for it gives disease to the soul. All the
means of true joy are put out of our possession.
Absorbed like this in ourselves, how can we take an
eager pleasure in the battle of mankind for right, in
its long struggle to attain perfection, or taste the
exultation of the war ? How can we live in harmony
with the long traditions of Christmas or of Easter joy ?
And if we cannot escape from our selfish work to feel
with man, how can we feel with nature ? Does the
splendour of the May morning make our heart beat ;
can we hear the music of the spheres at night rush-
ing through the circling stars ; can we see, beneath
all pain, the glories that encompass us — the love ot
God resistlessly urging men towards the goal of
perfect life ; the infinite thought of God creating, as
it thinks, the universe ; and hear the rhythmic beat
of both moving through immortal joy — sounds and
visions of the spirit which, if we could comprehend,
our heart could not contain itself for delight ?

Alas, if we have lost these powers, or never gained
them, we are but half a man ; unable ever to sing,
out of a full heart, the song of the Nativity, Glory

193 N

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

to God in the Highest ; unable ever to see the
angels sitting by the tomb of our dead past, or hear
them tell us to go forward, for our life is arisen into
an Easter joy. Better, better far to be the shepherd
on the hills, or the poor fisherman by the lake, than
so deaf and blind a man. All the wealth made by
all the selfish work of the world is dust and ashes in
comparison to one hour of the things which God
reveals to the heart of him who is arisen into the
life of Jesus, into the life of self-forgetful love.

(3) There is another element beyond selfish sad-
ness or selfish work which takes away from us the
joy of Easter. It is selfish religion. When we
think only of our own salvation the joy of God de-
parts from us. When we praise Him for ourselves
alone, we end by being unable to praise at all.
Praise cannot live in a soul which is imprisoned
in self-congratulation. Thinking only of our own
sins, and of their forgiveness, and of our own
state before God, we isolate ourselves from the
human race ; and, when we most claim Christ for
our own, we most divide ourselves from Him who
came to bind us up with all our brothers. What
has Jesus to do with those who only have to do with
themselves? We shall never find Him when we
are musing on our own religious state in the closed

chambers of our soul, and saying to ourselves, " God,

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EASTER DAY

I thank Thee I am redeemed." We shall only find
Him when we seek Him going in and out among
men and striving to redeem them. In saving others
with Him, we shall win the delight we lose in
selfish contemplation of our own redemption. Our
true religious joy is found in the same self-forgetful
delight the Christians of old gave in these stories of
the angels on the hills and by the tomb — delight in
salvation coming to the human race. There, in the
mighty thought that all men are being educated by
a Father into oneness with infinite Love, we find
the true and lofty rapture, which, in the midst of our
direst tribulation, should belong to men who have
followed the Master and Deliverer of spiritual
humanity from Nazareth to the death on Calvary,
and then to the glory of Easter Day ; who, spring-
ing off their own shadow into the sunshine of faith
in the resurrection of mankind, can cry with the
angels, ** Glory to God in the highest ; Man is
arisen in Christ."

This is our greatest Easter joy, and our Christmas
joy. And indeed we need it. For while 1 dwell on
ioy, I do not put aside the sorrow of mankind. The
story of Christ Jesus is a mingled web of pain and
pleasure ; and so is human life. The song of Beth-
lehem was followed by the terrible cry of Calvary ;
but a new song followed that woeful sorrow, and

Tt95

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

even the " Glory to God in the highest " was less
rapturous and less glorious than " He is not here ;
He is risen." Yes, mortal pain precedes our divinest
joy ; for a long time keeps it company ; but at last
it leaves it, and joy is alone in victory. ** In this
world,*' said our Master, " ye shall have tribulation,"
for He knew our suffering ; " but be of good cheer,
I have overcome the world," for He also knew our
conquest.

It is hard sometimes to feel the end in the midst
of the trouble ; tor, as one year follows another, so
follows one sorrow on another. We cannot but
think, at every anniversary, unless the brightness of
youth is with us, of all that is gone, of the love we
have given and received and parted from, of the
failure of hopes and the dimness of ideals, of the
lessening of power, of the friends now no more who
once gathered with us round the blazing hearth —
ship after ship gone down, and we drifting on alone !

Whither ? we cry ; and there are those who
answer, " We do not know," and others who, more
bold, reply, *' Over the cataract to nothingness."

Those are not answers we accept ; answers on

the contrary that we deny. Were we to accept

them, no high creative joy for man would be left in

life. We sorrow enough ; but it were to double

sorrow upon sorrow, if we were to believe that all

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EASTER DAY

mankind but passed across a stage, played out a
tragedy, and fell on the other side into a voiceless
depth ; while the Great Power beyond sat as a grim
spectator in this world-theatre, amused by our vain
endeavour, and purging His soul with the aspect of
passions which He scorns, and sorrows for which He
has no care. That we should perish might be borne.
The individual might well conceive the sacrifice of
his personal consciousness to the conscious life of
the whole of man ; but that all men, from Christ
on the Cross, through every stage of greatness and
badness, to the blackest murderer of the souls of
men, should meet annihilation of all intelligence and
love and personality — this deepens every personal
pain, makes revolting the misery of the world for
uncounted ages, blackens our little life tenfold in
blackening the whole of humanity, and adds to the
blackness of it all the darker element of just self-
contempt. To walk wherever we go with quicken-
ing corruption does not relieve our pain, and de-
stroys our joy. To sing, instead of " Glory to God
in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill to
Man," " Glory to annihilation in the abyss, and on
earth Death and Death's ill-will to Man," is a dread-
ful and a shameful thing. But those who say they
believe in this destruction of love and life do not

really believe in it any more than the orthodox

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THE GOSPEL OF JOY

believe in eternal hell. Both are too hateful, too
outside of reason in its loftiest mood. The common
sense of common love declares that both are lies.

At least, that is not our belief who have known
that Jesus is alive for evermore, and that as the
Master is, so shall His brothers be. We know this
when we have risen from a spiritual death of selfish-
ness and sin into a new life of love and righteous-
ness ; and when we know it for ourselves we rejoice
in knowing it for our fellow men, even for those who
know it not. Day by day our inward life deepens ;
day by day the things which make for death fade
away. We grow into the power of the Resurrection.
Our years of failure we find turned into power ; our
sins have been replaced by their opponent good-
ness ; our sorrows have been turned into joy ; our
work has lost its selfishness ; our religious life
thinks no longer of its own salvation, but of the
salvation of the world. The deepest basis of our
life at last is joyfulness.

Even age, which seems so bitter, is accompanied

with such youthful stir in the depths of the soul,

such change in the eternities of love and peace, that

we feel, below the husk of life, and in the midmost

of decay, that a new creature is being formed within

us for a new life. The doors begin to open, we hear

the host of heaven singing : *' Glory to God in the

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EASTER DAY

highest." A great peace, a profound joy are our
guests within. "We are not here," we cry, "we
are already risen."

Nor, lastly, is this only personal. It is far more
human and universal than personal. We have learnt
to feel our own joy only by faith in the joy of the
whole race, our personal resurrection only in the
resurrection of the whole. Day by day, as our
knowledge of the good in man deepens — ^the know-
ledge we have won by walking with the love of
Christ among men — day by day, as we think of the
P^atlier who is educating all ; as the history of the
race of man expands in our contemplation into a
noble and musical movement towards a divine end ;
we grow up into the final truth of God in all, and all
in God ; until, as it were on a sudden — for such reve-
lations, though long prepared, break into full splen-
dour in a moment — the most ineffable joy of life is
born within, and, lo, the angel of the Lord at the
tomb of all humanity ; and when, trembling with de-
light, we ask, "Where is mankind?" We are
answered by the ancient words with a new and
greater meaning, " Mankind is not here. All
humanity is arisen."

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THE THIRST FOR GOD

As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth
my soul after Thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God,
for the living God.

Psalms xlii. i. 2

WHEN I pass through the streets, day after
day, amid the crowds of London, and see
the faces that glance for a moment at me, and I at
them, the passion of the world almost overwhelms
me. Desire looks out from the eyes of humanity as
eagerly as a Queen from her tower window for the
return of her warriors from the field where the fate
of her empire and herself is to be decided. Some
want, some noble or ignoble passion, some hope, some
greed, some unfulfilled desire thirsts in every man and
woman. Though the things thirsted for are different,
the thirst itself is the same in kind ; but it varies indefi-
nitely in degree. In some it parches always, in others
it concentrates itself in moments ; but it never allows
any of us to altogether rest. We are like wanderers
through a dry land who find enough water to save

them from death, but never enough to satisfy them.

203

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

The very body is affected by the unquiet of inward
desire. The moving hands, the walk, the attitudes,
tell of the craving soul. Even in those who have
learnt or inherited the mastery of the body, the
mouth trembles, the eyes flash, in unguarded
moments, and speak the cravings that are athirst
within. ** My soul is athirst " is a universal cry ;
the cry which, however men may make us descend
from the brute, separates us from the brute by
an infinite, unbridgeable gulf No brute has ever
thirsted for fame, or wealth, or love as we under-
stand it, for knowledge or for beauty. But we do.

We thirst for fame. Ambition is a common
passion, not only " that last infirmity of noble mind,"
but the first infirmity of ordinary men.- The way to
fame is long and weary; and the common man
turns to an easier desire. But the other who
persists leaves behind the quiet ways, and strikes
upwards to the mountain-top. The way is steep
and rugged ; our very heart is worn before we win
what we desired ; and when it is won, we are still
in want. The pool on the mountain rock, at which
on that lonely height we drink, is shallow; the
water is brackish, and it is soon exhausted. " I
am," we cry, " as thirsty as before, but I know not
for what I thirst. God ! hast Thou brought me here

only to prove that I have been mistaken all my life ?

204

THE THIRST FOR GOD

To win what I wished for, and find it as dry as a
bone — the abyss of Being empty still, the craving
of it for life still as fierce as when I was young."
And God answers in his soul : " Of thine own will
art thou here, not of mine. Earth's ambitions
exhaust my children and are themselves exhausted.
The true ambition is to be at one with me, thy
Father. That is inexhaustible ; it does not exhaust,
but empowers its pursuer; when thou art at one
with me, the universe is thine."

There are some who thirst for wealth. As the
hart panteth after the water brooks, we long for
money. Night and day we pursue the quest,
bestowing on it the energies of immortality, sacri-
ficing to it the noblest things we possess — time, will,
love, character, conscience, pity, sensitiveness,
imagination, humanity and God. And when we get
it, we want more of it. The more we have the more
we desire, till the passion for accumulation becomes
a disease in the mind, and eats the soul like fire.
In the fierce symbolism of the mediaeval hell, the
avaricious drink of molten gold. There are those
on earth in that hell now. As their money burns
down the throat of their life it consumes their very
heart.

Then, and above all, we thirst for love. There

are they who seek the true, tender, and natural love.

205

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

It is a noble thing to win. But it does not quench our
thirst. Its waters speak of other waters of love, deeper
and purer. If we think ourselves satisfied with per-
sonal love, we are lost to the highest love. Home
love, sweetheart love, married love, ought to outreach
themselves, to expand to wider love, without losing
their own sweetness ; or else their freshness, grace
and charm depart. Love is of its nature infinite, and it
seeks the infinite. Personal love ought to rise into
love of our nation — thence into love of humanity,
and thence at last into God. There in the infinite
Affection it is at home. And in that home all love,
from its beginning in personal love, is secured,
animated, retains its morning charm, and lives an
illimitable life. Its thirst is satisfied at last.

Others thirst for false love, even for the pleasures of
sensual appetite. No preacher can ignore this side of
life; and its false passions, at intervals, invade society.
We turn aside from the common, sweet meadows of
natural and simple love, and long for the stormier
lands, where we shall meet strange emotions, un-
known experiences, sensations which excite, allure
and thrill the heart — a life which will stir our
languid pulse and kindle our exhausted flames. We*
satisfy for a time this curious thirst, and what is the
result? The same thirst awakens again, a fiercer

craving than before, till our very central being — for

206

THE THIRST FOR GOD

the Angel of Love whom we have degraded belongs
to our deepest life — is attainted. We are guilty of
high treason to the very royalty in human nature.
Not only body and soul are consumed with this
craving, but the spirit also — all that embraces
imagination, beauty, and religion, worship of God,
love of man — is dragged captive and degraded at
the heels . of our false desires. We have employed
the noblest powers of the soul as slaves in the house
of disordered love ; set the horses of the sun to draw
the chariot of the flesh, used God Himself — there is
nothing more common — to add a new touch of passion
to iniquity ; and tainted all. And when we get
our wish, we thirst again; and the thirst is the
fiercer, because we have now lost the power of
enjoying our false love. Evil passion has devoured
the capability of passion, but the craving of it is
the more tyrannic. This is to change our whole
being into a greedy flame of hell.

Many other are the thirsts of men, and when,
pursuing all and arriving at their waters, we find
them salt ; why then, at long last, the thirst for God
awakes. " In vain," we cry, " I have drunk at
earthly wells; I have not made desire less but
more. In vain have I tried to cool my heart ; it
burns as hotly as before. What is this unquench-
able in me; what this eternal craving? Now and

207

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

only now I know, or seem to know! It is the
desire of the child for the Father ; of the soul for its
source ; of the everlasting in me for the everlasting ;
of the timeless and the spaceless in me for the
illimitable ; of the dim sparks of the character of
God in me for the immortal fire of His Being from
whom they originally came. My soul is athirst for
God, for the living God."

This was the career the writer ran. Like Solomon,
to whom he may have compared himself, he had
tried all waters, followed all the rivers of human
desire to their fountains, and whatever he had
drunk, he had thirsted again. There was but one
thing left to try, one head of waters as yet un-
sought. Far off it seemed to be, as far as seemed
the woodland stream he knows from the antelope
who had drifted into the desert in the following of
fancy, and who, wearied, stood lost under the
burning sun. Well the poor beast knew that shady
forest pool, where the stream came leaping clear and
pure down the rocks ; sweet was the image of it in
his memory, and bitter the passion of his desire for
it — and well we know, when we find ourselves lost
at last in the desert of doing our own will, what it
is we want. There is a memory left in us of an-
cient times, when, as children, we were content in
innocence, when we drank, unconsciously, of God ;

20S

THE THIRST FOR GOD

before we were lured away to try new paths ; and
inconceivably fresh and pure seem to us those living
streams, and the simple meadows through which
they ran. And then, driven by the memory and the
desire it awakens, we smite together into one the
image of the lost and craving antelope and the image
of the lost and craving heart within us — and cry
aloud, " As the hart panteth after the water brooks,
so longeth my soul after Thee, O God."

See then, when it comes, how overmastering a
thirst it is. No image could be more intense than
that the writer uses. Every Oriental had seen an
animal die of thirst, and imaged what it must have
thought of as it died. And indeed the longing for
God when at last it stirs is as intense ; and needs
intensity. It needs that, because it is the highest
aim of the soul, and the higher the aim the more
impassioned is the pursuit. It is intense, because all
the previous thirsts were its false forms, because this
highest thirst was their moving power, and now
takes into itself every grain of feeling that gave them
vitality. The thirst for God is swollen by all the
cravings of the past.

It is that also, because we have at last clearly

realised what we want, because now we know what

will satisfy the soul, and where the satisfaction lies.

As when we walk on a burning day, our thirst,

209 o

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

which has been bearable while we knew we. could
not quench it, becomes ten times as great when we
are told of a fountain five miles away \ so the soul,
when it knows that God is its satisfaction, and has
not yet found Him, feels its longing tenfold more
than when it was ignorant. Well did Jesus know
this intensity, and well He expressed it. " Whoso
drinketh of this water shall thirst again, but whoso
drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall
never thirst. In him it shall be a fountain springing
up into everlasting life." That water was the
character of God and union with it.

But the thirst for God is a term that is somewhat
vague for those who do not feel it. It need not,
however, be left in the vague. It is clear enough
what it is. To thirst for God is to thirst for all that
makes His character — and then for personal union
with Him whose Will creates that character.

(i) It is to thirst for righteousness, for freedom
from sin ; and with a hundredfold more desire than
we have ever thirsted for wrong-doing. It is to
desire righteousness above all things else, so that
we can no more pass wilfully into wrong than we
can wilfully strike the woman that we love. It is
to be restless, and feel ourselves as exiles, as long
as we do or cherish what we believe to be sin. It
is to gather every power of our nature up, and set

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them one and all to make our outward life clean and

our inward thought pure. It is to cry to God,

** Prove me and examine my heart and see if there

is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way

everlasting." It is to obey the eternal law which

grows not old, though our obedience subject our

fortune to ruin, our fame to misrepute, and our body

to suffering and death. It is to put into the desiring

and doing of these things more intensity than we

have ever put into the winning of an earthly love,

nay, to sacrifice that love itself, if it lead us outside

of righteousness. This is part of the thirst for

God, and blessed are ye who have it or have begun

to have it. Ye shall be filled with it. " Blessed

arc they," said Christ, " who hunger and thirst after

righteousness, for they shall be filled." This is to

thirst for God in the private life of the soul.

(2) Then, again, to thirst for God is to thirst for

justice, and justice is righteousness in dealing with

our fellow men ; external righteousness. It is never

satisfied, if in anything we do we injure directly or

indirectly the life or welfare of another ; and the

tremendous demand thai makes on all our business

life, on all our lives as citizens, on all the ways by '

which we pursue after wealth or pleasure or beauty

or knowledge, is only understood when we begin to

thirst for justice. It seems to lay its hand on every-

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THE GOSPEL OF JOY

thing we do; it challenges us to think always
whether our actions or their aims will benefit or
wrong mankind. Nor is that all. The thirst for
justice means that we should be sensitive to all
oppression or injustice, feel our very heart srcitten
when we see it or hear of it, and shape our feeling
into living work against it, and that, not only at
home but abroad, not only in our nation, but, so far
as we can, in every nation under the sun. At least,
it can be known — though we may be able to do
but little — that we stand against all the foul oppres-
sions, all the injuries, which men do to men. This
is to thirst for God in the public life of the world of
men, as citizens of our nation, as brothers in the
vaster nation of mankind.

(3) Then, again, to thirst for God is to thirst for
truth. We live in the midst of a horde of lies, false
seemings which the world encourages in order that it
may not be troubled ; false standards of honesty in
business, political arrangements and glozes, which
allow a man to play false with his conscience and
his pledges ; social appearances which are put on to
cover our extravagance, our greed of accumulating,
our reckless pleasure, our secret gambling, our secret
impurity; religious seemings, apparent pieties in
public, when our hearts are elsewhere ; talk of the
lips about creeds and sacraments and doctrines, the

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THE THIRST FOR GOD

principles of which we violate in the week ; pretence
that we believe this or that, so that we may keep
our place in our society or our profession, when we
do not believe a word of what we say ; an atmosphere
of falsehood which we breathe from day to day, and
too little try to escape from — and this is to thirst for
the devil and not for God. O clear your soul ; thirst
for the truth. Desire it in the inward parts; and
make your outward life, in business, in society, in
vestry, board, council and Parliament, in your trade
and your labour, in your home, in your religion or
your irreligion, absolutely clear and honest, lucid as
the waters of God's nature for which you desire, at
which you hope to quench your thirst. This is to
thirst for God.

These are parts of the thirst for God which belong
to all men without exception. But there are other
portions of that thirst which, in their fulness, belong
to classes of men especially, though all, in less fulness,
ought to share in them. Two of these I mention as
I pass.

(4) There is knowledge, and the thirst for it is falsely

removed from the thirst for God. To desire knowledge

is a vital part of our thirst for God. All the work

of the intellect belongs to Him. He is its source,

and if He is the truth of things. He is its end. The

more then we thirst for it, the more we thirst for God.

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We thirst, when we thirst for God, for a complete
Being ; for one who is not only righteousness and
love, but also pure intelligence. To know by eager
work those ideas of God on which the universe is
based, and the discovery of which is science, that
also is to thirst for God ; and when religion inter-
feres with or limits that thirst, it is, so far, not
religion. To separate it from God or sacrifice it
to an apparent spirituality is deviating from God
Himself. For, it is God whom we see and know
when we gain a scientific truth, when we grasp
one of the ideas on which the constitution of nature
is built. Every discovery of science which is
proved true is a discovery of God. It hallows all
knowledge to believe that. It adds to its infinity ;
and the spread of knowledge is one of the duties a
Christian man owes to God and man.

(5) So also the thirst for beauty is the thirst for
God, and this in its fulness belongs chiefly to the
artists of mankind, and in less fulness to those
who can see and feel beauty, but not embody it. To
desire, with unbroken faithfulness, to see more and
more of loveliness, and to double our rejoicing in it,
whether in nature, art, or human character; never to
link our love of it with the ill desire of wealth or of
the world's applause ; never to turn aside from the

spiritual vision which the soul imagines of perfect

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loveliness to any lower aim ; to strive to shape the
beauty we conceive into some form which shall exalt
or comfort men by the emotion of the perfect and
illimitable which it awakens ; to strive after not only
the possible but that which seems impossible, not
only the real but the ideal loveliness — that far-off
image of perfection and harmony that flits before us,
but which prophesies the time and the country where
it shall be approached ever more nearly with increas-
ing joy — to thirst for that, apd to follow it, as the
hart panteth after the water brooks — that, too, is to
thirst for God.

But what of those who cannot shape the beautiful,
cannot thirst for it as the poet, the painter or the
musician ? Why — a vast range of the beautiful is
left for them ; even for the most ignorant, the most
untrained. It is to see all that is spiritually beautiful
in man and humanity ; to feel the divine fairness in
human tenderness, pity and self-sacrifice; to love
Love wherever we meet it, and to know that it is
lovely ; to rejoice in man's doing of Duty, and to
understand the divine beauty in her eyes ; to see her
moral charm, her ordered loveliness in Nature : the
flowers that spring beneath her feet, and the fragrance
of the places where she dwells ; to see the immortal
heavens fresh aiid strong, and the stars preserved
from wrong by her self-enchanted fulfilment of law —

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that is to thirst for God as beauty ; and it is in the
power of the least wise, and of the poorest labourer
upon this earth.

(6) There yet remains that in which all the rest are
contained — there yet remains love, love which moves
the universe, and whose motion is God Himself.
To thirst to be at one with love, that is to thirst for
the living God. Love in us is self-forgetfulness.
To be able, when we live with Nature, to forget in
her majesty and beauty our craving self, all inward
thoughts of what we are and feel ; to find, listening
to her great voices, intensity of Being in losing all
consideration of Becoming; to know, in the still
hours when we enter into her heart, a rapture of
admiration, reverence, joy and aspiration — that is
partly to satisfy our thirst for God ; for the loveliness
of Nature is the image of the creative Love.

Then, to be able, when we live with our brother
men, not to remember what we wish for ourselves, but
only their wants, their joy and their sorrow ; to think,
not of our own desires, but how to minister to the
great causes and the great conceptions which help
mankind; to be eager to give pity to men, and forgive-
ness to their wrong ; to desire wilh thirst to bind up
the broken heart of man, and to realise our desire in
act — this is to thirst for God as Love. For this is

self-forgetfulness, and in the abysmal depths of His

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Being as well as in every surface-form into which
He throws Himself out of Himself, God is the abso-
lute Self-forgetfulness.

If we could but get into that essential energy of
love, we should thirst no more. We should then
become creative, and have in creativeness perfect
joy. God, in absolute self-forgetfulness, is the
absolute Creator. All creation is an act of self-
forgetfulness, an act of love. And every act of love
is an act of rapture I Yes, to thirst for love is to
thirst for the quintessence of God ; and the satisfac-
tion of the thirst for love lies in the winning, through
love, of that power of creating which makes the
incessant joy of everlasting life.

(7) This seems enough, but it is not. To thirst for

God is more than all that I have said. There is

that in us which cries out for a personal relation to

Him ; which desires to be hand in hand and heart

to heart. We have been so accustomed to personal

life on earth; so trained, through our nature, to

distinctive love, that we must long for it in our

relation to God. He must be more to us than

abstract truth or justice, than ideal beauty and

perfect knowledge, or than the unoutlined love

which fills the veins of the universe with life. We

thirst for more than this. To cry " My Father ! " to

hear Him answer, " My child " — not from the distant

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heavens, but in our secret heart — that is our most
passionate desire. We hear it in the words the
Psalmist adds to his first expression. " My soul
is athirst for God," **for the living God." Yes,
we thirst for a God who is alive to us: who is
conscious of His own being, and of ours; who
has a character, and desires that we shall be at
one with it ; who has a will which mingles with our
will, and leads it straight to Himself; who loves
with a love the same in kind with our love when it
is self-forgetful ; and who is pouring into our whole
nature the stream of that love, with a personal touch
in it, arranged and fitted to our distinct character,
so that we say, " God is mine and I am His ; and
never can I cease to be His care. He gives
Himself to me with pleasure, and desires to receive
my little love from me." This is our thirst for the
living God.

The prophets and singers of Israel had told us of
this thirst for God as the infinite righteousness, truth,
and justice. But this closer, keener, dearer thirst was
the thirst of which Christ told us. That was His reve-
lation. The child thirsts for the Father. This was the
very essence of the life of Jesus Christ. " I and my
Father," He said, "are one." It ought to be the
full expression of our heart. The little Child who

walked among the flowers of Nazareth, who stood

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SO often on the hill-top, and looked across the long

corn-clad valley to the top of Carmel far away, saw

His Father's work and heard His Father's voice in

every cloud and stream and waving field, and in the

stars of night ; so that, when He was a man, He made

all the doings of the plants and birds and waters,

of the sheep and the vine-dressers, parables of which

the doings of God with man were the interpretation.

The Boy who lived with the peasants of Nazareth

and went with the great caravans to the feast at

Jerusalem, and talked with the doctors in the Temple,

living as closely with mankind as He lived with

nature, saw in the soul of every man and woman His

Father, moving, loving, inspiring, reproving, and

guiding, and strove to make them know the mighty

truth He knew — that God was in them, their dearest

friend and father. "Wist ye not" (the tradition

declares He said, when His mother chided Him for

leaving them to speak to men) "that I must be

about my Father's business ? " And His whole life

was spent in bringing men, children, and women

into personal knowledge of the unutterable love

which never left them nor forsook them.

But as deep and clear was His own vision of His

Father in His own heart. The thirst for personal

and eternal love as His own, just and true and tender

to Him, with whom He spoke and walked and

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THE GOSPEL OF JOY

lived, that thirst was satisfied in Jesus. As light
fills the heavens, so God's personal love filled the
heart of Jesus ; and no sorrow, suffering, no earthly
ruin availed to make it less or dim its brightness.
When all forsook Him He took refuge within : " I
am not alone, my Father is with me." In His
bitterest agony in the garden. He went straight to
God, His Father, and laid all His pain at His feet in
infinite trust: "O my Father!" Would to God
we had the fulness of that faith 1 But at least we
may have some of it. We are parched with thirst
without it. We must have it. We are so alone in
the greater part of our life, so much of it is passed
in the silences, so much for ever must remain
unknown ; there is so much within of which we
ourselves are ignorant, and which we dimly fear ;
that we want, deep in our silent spirit, a com-
panion who knows all, and loves us better than
He knows. We want God's love for life ; for all its
trouble, sin, trial, loneliness. We want it in the hour
when we depart to another life. To leave the little
that we know, but which is so comforting because
we know it ; to look into the soundless vast, realising
that loneliness of the universe which, by clinging to
the material, we have kept at bay on earth — this is,
however great our faith, an hour of awe, and in it

we know how much we need a Father who never

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THE THIRST FOR GOD

forsakes His children. "Where shall I be when I
am dead ? " " In my arms," is the Father's answer.
•' Whom shall I be with ? " " With me," He re-
plies, " with all I am, and all that I support." To
thirst for that deep relation is to thirst for God.
It is the deepest, the most natural thirst of man, and
whoso drinketh of that water shall never thirst again.
From the depths of the central light where Love
sits throned, and thrills from thence through all the
universe of matter and of spirit, these mighty waters
of God's being flow — justice and righteousness, truth
and pity, knowledge and beauty, love and fatherhood
— to satisfy the thirst of man. The sage drinks them
and the little child, and both are satisfied, for both
can love. Healing and life, joy and perfection are
in their gay and glorious waves. Their streams
make glad every little city of God which in each
separate soul is built within us for eternity. They
make glad the greater city, that vast and varied
civitas Deif which is now building, stone by stone,
life by life, in the human race ; and in it, when it is
finished, they will flow for evermore.

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THE HALLOWING OF GOD'S
CHARACTER

Hallowed be thy name.

St. Matthew vi. 9

AMONG the Jews, as among all nations in early
times, the name given to a man in his man-
hood was a record of his character ; and the word
" name " was equivalent to character. When Jesus
said, " Hallowed be Thy name," every Jew knew
what He meant. He meant us to pray — " Our Father
which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy character on
earth as it is heaven," and, like every other petition
in this prayer, the phrase has its universal appli-
cations. Its force extends over all the spiritual
creatures of the universe, from the dwellers on this
tiny star we call the earth to the inhabitants of
the infinite of space. There is no thinking and
loving being in the uncountable worlds evolved from
the Thought of God, who ought not to pray with a
full heart : " Hallowed, Father, be Thy character by

me, and by all Thy children." Illimitable is the

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outstretch of the prayer ; and when we pray it, we
are in the illimitable.

" Hallowed be Thy character ; " let it be held un-
violated in our lives ; let its attributes, its qualities
be lived in, worshipped, and enjoyed by us, with
something of the same delight, awe, love and kindled
aspiration, with which, in some hour of trans-
cendent feeling, we stand on a lofty mountain-side
when the dawn breaks from the East. The wide
plain lies outspread below, with woods and streams,
and scattered towns : far beyond, the ocean-fulness
girdles the world; above, the infinite skies speak
of immeasurable power. Increase the passion which
then you feel, double and redouble it, till thought
and feeling fail to bear you further ; and then you
will have some conception of the mighty mingling of
awe and love with which you ought to pray this vast
petition — " Hallowed, my God, be Thy character."

But men ask, " What do we know, and how do

we know anything of His character ? " Many answers

are given to that question by priesthoods in Churches

and sects, in heathen and Christian nations; and the

answers assume a specialised revelation, super-

naturally given to a few selected persons, and by

them handed on to the laity. That is not our

view in this place. We believe that all the ideas

mankind has gained of the character of God both in

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THE HALLOWING OF GOD'S CHARACTER

the past and present have been gained from our
fellow men, in whom the Father has been thinking
and acting, and therefore revealing Himself, from the
beginning. The lives and acts of His dear children
have made His life and action known. The thoughts
and words of those who have earned the love and
honour of the human race have made plain to us
how God thinks and how He speaks to us. The
whole of this vast experience of the workings in men
of those qualities of character which we have come
to name love, justice, truth, holiness, pity, and joy,
has enabled us to build up the character of God ; or,
to put more justly our belief — God Himself, moving
incessantly in man, has, through the whole course
of history, in every nation, in every character, in all
the work of law, literature, science, of the conscience,
intellect and spirit of man — built up in humanity that
idea of His character which it is the fact that man-
kind, possesses. Moreover He is still building it up.
The idea of His character opens before us century
by century. Every expansion of the work of man
in knowledge, in love, in spiritual aspiration, in
social and political morality, adds to our conception
of His character. This is the great, the continuous
revelation. Year by year tells us more of what our
Father is. This belief makes the ineffable charm

of life, our incessant interest in it ; this is the fount

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of manhood's inspiration, the undying pleasure which
deepens as old age comes on ; this is our certainty
behind the doubts of life and the seeming failures
of our work. The vast evolution of God's character
in Man never for one moment relaxes the march of
its revelation.

When we proclaim that faith, there are those who
answer — " Then we know nothing really about the
God of whom you speak. He may not exist at all ;
He may be only the creation of our own minds.
If we have built up His character from within our-
selves, we have no undeniable proof that there is
such a character beyond ourselves." Indeed, that is
true. We have no demonstrable evidence of the
existence of our Father. Every one knows that it is
an incessant subject of debate ; and the debate will
probably continue '* until we close with all we love,
and all we flow from, soul in soul."

But then, it must be remembered that the negative

can be just as little proved as the positive. No one

can presume to say that it has been demonstrated

that our idea of God and His character has only

been built up by ourselves, and that there is no

reality beyond ourselves which embodies the idea.

That atheistic statement is also subject to incessant

debate, and must, by the very nature of the matter,

continue to be so. The intellectual proof then of

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THE HALLOWING OF GOD'S CHARACTER

the one or the other cannot be given in this world.

We have to say, if the reasoning faculty is alone

appealed to, that we cannot know.

It is then that on this matter faith steps in ; that

power within us — of whose existence we have clear

evidence, whose work in realms other than those

that are only spiritual is a matter of daily experience

— faith, the child of imagination and of love. It leaps

beyond the necessity of demonstration ; it lives, as

its parents, imagination and love, have always done,

in a world where the reasoning faculty cannot breathe ;

and in its power we cry, " I need no demonstration,

I feel my Father moving in me; I have loved, I

have aspired, I have felt that I am loved ; I believe

in God. I know in the depths of the soul that

what the highest judgment of the human race,

labouring through the experience of centuries, has

made God to be — He is ; and what more He is, the

world and I shall know hereafter. The idea of

Him I have at present is enough for the time in

which I live, and for my life. It is not of man

alone. It has grown to its present form, not only

out of the thought and desires of man, but also

out of God's thought and God's love, working in and

with the thought and love of man from the beginning

even until now. He is ; and He is my Father. All

that is in me which is of any worth has come from

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Him and is going to Him. Then as I feel this per-
sonal union with Him, my personal view, strange to
say, changes into a universal view. What I believe
for myself, I believe also for mankind. God's Light
and Life, streaming into me, irradiate Humanity for
me. He is ; and He is not only my Father, but our
Father."

When that belief is gained, we pass onward to a
higher belief. Expansion is the foremost character-
istic of all the spiritual and imaginative powers ; and
Faith possesses it. Our actual belief in God is lifted
into belief in its ideal. Driven by an inward power,
and soaring by an inward impulse which we believe
to be the very power of God in us, we pass beyond
the limited conception we have of God, and see a
larger, a more glorious vision of Him. All we have
as yet conceived of Him puts on illimitability and
eternity and absolute perfection. We know what
human truth, justice, pity, love and righteousness
contain and are. We know what beauty means to
us, and what is knowledge. And knowing these, the
spiritual power within us expands them. We
behold them eternal, omnipotent and perfect. We
see them inhering in a Will which is the energy of
the universe ; but which is also a Force in us — the
Force which makes this vision. And as these quali-
ties make up noble character on earth when directed

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THE HALLOWING OF GOD'S CHARACTER

by a will which is self-limited by them — we pass on
to feel, that, infinitely expanded, they make up the
character of our God and Father. This is our
loftiest reach ; and now, out of our heart thrilling
with this vast conception, out of Love and Faith,
soaring like twin eagles in the unspeakable Light,
we pray — Hallowed be Thy character, our Father
and our God.

This is our faith, and a noble faith it is. But
faith carries with it the duties which naturally flow
from the thing believed in ; and the question now
arises : " In what way shall we hallow the character
of God ; how shall we be true to our prayer ? "

(i) The first and the most proper way to hallow
a character is, to be that character as nearly as
we can. What we believe God is, that we should
become. A life of prayer to Him is to make our
thought and act in harmony with His character, is
to be able to say with a clear conscience : " Hallowed
be Thy name."

We have conceived, for example, what perfect

justice is, what it is in God. We are bound to

hallow that part of His character by living as closely

to it as the ivy to the oak. And I choose justice as

my illustration, for there is no attribute of God of

which we take less notice. And the reason we

ignore it so much is that there is nothing which

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interferes more seriously with our selfish wealth,
with our worldly position, business and amusement,
than any attempt to be equal to the highest standard
of justice. The justice of God calls on us to get
rid of all prejudice in our domestic, social and
political life ; to equally get rid of the conventional
maxims of society as standards of morality; to
see things that are called good or evil, just as we
suppose God sees them, without one grain of pre-
possession, and to form our judgment then, and
not till then; to make allowance, in judging, for
circumstances, for natural and hereditary tenden-
cies in the wrong-doer; to get down, beyond
apparent motives, to the bottom rock of the deed ;
to put ourselves into the place of the person on
whom we are called to do justice. That is part of
the doing of justice, of hallowing God's character.

It is, in party strife, to give full credit to an
opponent, to say to one's self: "I hold him mis-
taken, but he may mean as well as I." It is, in
home life, not to let hot temper, jealousy, human love,
selfish claims, weakness or sloth, lead us to favour
or disfavour unduly any of the household. It is, in
business life, to take no undue advantage; not to
build our prosperity on the misfortune of another ;
not to use things or money, not justly our own, for

any purpose whatever ; not to keep those at work

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for US at unjust wages, unjust not according to supply
and demandi but according to the demand of God's
justice which you hear in your soul. It is, on
the workman's part, to give honest work, just to
that which he knows to be the best that he can do.
And it is, above all, in this world where so much
injustice rules, to maintain by voice and act the
absolute idea of justice in all human relations, even
though it should be to our loss of wealth, position
and repute.

To have the temper of justice in all things — that
is to hallow the character of God, to keep it holy.
But God is more than justice ; and what I have here
said of justice is to be said also of all the attributes
of God ; of love and pity and truth and order and
righteousness, which along with justice make up
His character. The proper way to hallow them is
to be their image ; to live them out in daily life.

It is a tremendous indictment of that daily life to
recognise that this is true ; it is a tremendous call
upon us to ask us to fulfil it. It leaves no moment of
the day, no shred of our work, no motive of the
heart, no strong desire, no act or speech at home or
abroad, without its impulse, or without its check.
But the loveliness and the glory of the thing to
be attained ought to enable us to face the indictment,
and to walk worthy of the call. For if we are true

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to the ideal of life contained in " Hallowed be Thy
name/* we finally become that which we hallow.
We are changed into oneness with God ; His cha-
racter our character, His life and rapture ours.

(2) So much for the meaning of the prayer in daily
life. There are two other large aspects of the matter.
The first of these is the hallowing of God's character
as felt in the natural world ; the second is the
hallowing of His character as felt in humanity.

Our life with Nature is all the dearer to us in
these great and gloomy cities for the brief glimpses
we have of its charm ; but if we would add to it
something more than the thrill of the senses, some-
thing more even than the imaginative movement of
the soul under the pressure of Beauty ; if we would
add to it that which is beyond ourselves, which lifts
us out of the material into that spiritual substance
which underlies and makes the outward forms of
things — we ought to see below her garment the
living spirit who weaves and unweaves her garment ;
we ought to see God's character moving through the
play and joy of Order and Beauty in the myriad-
minded universe, and hallow it in thought. " Put
off thy shoes from thy feet, for the place where
thou standest is holy ground " — that should be the
attitude of the soul by the sounding sea, or on the
solemn hills, or in the rejoicing wood as it listens to

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THE HALLOWING OF GOD'S CHARACTER

its Streams. As we look and muse, the senses re-
ceive the charm of the lovely and solemn ^ things ;
the imagination combines their images, and adds to
them human love and memories ; the soul rejoices
in the play. Beauty strikes her harp, and the brain
kindles and dances to the tune; but if you would
lift the natural vision into its eternal reality ; would
you see and hear what mortal eye and ear cannot
distinguish — the rushing of the immortal life through
all that breathes, the love whose smile kindles the
universe — send forth your spirit from yourself to
mix with deity. Feel the musical soul of divine
thought and love which is moving everywhere; pass
with hallowed awe and joy into the character of God
revealed in, and making, the outward world.

So will our morning walk in the garden full of
dew, and our rest at noon beside the clear water
of the wood, and the evening vision of the sunset
glory, and the hour when listening to the silence of
the night we watch the stars enter like guests into
the hall of heaven, be blest with infinite peace, full
of the loveliness and joyous with the power of His
character, whose dwelling is as deep in Nature as in
the heart of man.

It is not a lifeless and loveless Nature which then
is our companion, whose eyes strike cold and grey
on imagination, but Nature thrilling with life and

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love. We feel with a new and added joy her life
and love answering to the life and love in us, and
with almost a personal touch in their reply. And
the personal touch in her is not only the reflection
of our own personality ; it comes out of the will of
God in Nature. We feel in her not only life and
love, but a Being and a character. " Imaged here
before me," so we think, " imaged in material forms,
and in the laws which rule their evolution, are truth
and righteousness, order and beauty and harmony,
joy and love, mighty power evolving good, vast
purpose moving to a divine and lovely close.
What I feel, as I see and hear, Gk)d has first felt ;
what I love here. He has first loved ; what kindles
my imagination here and my intellect, God first
kindled in Himself, and God thought beforehand.
Therefore I am filled brimful with love and awe and
joy. I hallow Him in His universe ; with a full
heart I pray as I lay me down to rest and carry into
my dreams the beauty I have loved." " Hallowed
be Thy name."

Again, as in Nature, so in Humanity, we are to
hallow God's character. All the goodness, love,
imagination, and intelligence we know in the race
of man had and has its source in the character of
God our Father. Hallow Him then in the truth
which men of science have taught us, and hallow

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THE HALLOWING OF GOD*S CHARACTER

God in them. Hallow Him in the beauty which the
artists of the world have created for us, and hallow
the divine Spirit in them. Hallow Him in the noble
work of law and government and progress which
men have wrought for man, and hallow God in the
men. Then history, art, science, and law, will not
be less, but more noble, when we trace them to the
everlasting source in whom the work and the men
are everlasting.

Hallow His character in those who have blessed
and redeemed mankind by love and holiness ; in the
great prophets who have proclaimed the spiritual
truths by which we overcome the world ; above all,
in our Master, Jesus Christ; in the saints who
have inspired us with holiness ; in the martyrs who
have made truth and faith the dearer by their death ;
in the thousand thousand unknown men, women,
and children whose gentle love has been a garden
of flowers where the trouble of man has found rest
and consolation. Hallow the name of God, hallow
His character, in all noble and good humanity.

That is not difficult. But to hallow God's
character in men and women who are not good,
in sinful humanity — ^that is not so easy. Yet, if
we would be true to this prayer of Christ, this too
is part of our duty. The evil are also the children
of God. They have not hallowed His character, but

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THE GOSPEL OF JOY

abandoned its worship. Nevertheless they cannot
get rid of it. That divine thing lies hid, ineradic-
ably, beneath their evil doing and evil thought.
The truth, justice, love, piety, and goodness of
God are in abeyance in the wrong-doer, but they
are not dead in him. They cannot die; nothing
can destroy them. And we, whose desire it should
be to save men, can, if we have faith in the in-
destructible God in men, pierce to this immortal
good in the evil, appeal to it, and call it forth to
light, like Lazarus, from the tomb. This we can
do, if, like Jesus, we love men enough ; if our faith
that the evil are still God's children be deep and
firm enough. In this we can keep closest to Christ,
for it was His daily way of life; and divinely
beautiful it was. He hallowed God's character in
the criminal and the harlot. He saw the good
beneath the evil. At His touch it leaped into life,
and its life destroyed the death in the sinner's soul.
It seems as if He said when He looked into the face
of the wrong-doer, " Father, hallowed be Thy
character." No lesson for life can be wiser or
deeper than this. It ought to rule all our doings
with the weak and guilty. It is at the very centre
of the prayer, " Hallowed be Thy name."

There is one more aspect of the matter, and it

knits the close of this sermon to the beginning ; that

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THE HALLOWING OF GOD'S CHARACTER

is, to the faith that the character of God has been
built up in our minds by God Himself working
through the deeds and thoughts of men. It is to
hallow His character in all the doctrines which we
hold about His doings with His children ; by accord-
ing them with the highest conceptions we now
possess of love, and truth, and justice, and righte-
ousness; and by rejecting all the doctrines which
violate those conceptions. This is a work which
men and women, faithful to humanity and the Father
in it, are bound to do. They are equally bound to
proclaim as the foundations of their faith the doc-
trines necessary for that lofty conception. If they
do not fulfil these two duties of protest and asser-
tion, they fall below the standard of their work;
they lose the passion, joy and inspiration of a lucid
faith ; they deny the claim this prayer makes upon
them. Hallowed therefore be Thy character, our
Father, in all our doctrines concerning Thee.

Lastly, when we have performed this hallowing
of God's character in our theological conceptions ; in
humanity ; in nature ; in our own inward life and in
our outward life ; when this worship, this prayer in
all its action, has become the habit of the soul I
then — and no result can be more sublime for
thought, more beautiful to imagination — we see God
and His character in the immeasurable history of the

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THE GOSPEL OF JOY

human race ; and rejoice with a universal joy. We
hallow, with reverence, love and exultation, the
evolution of the divine character in the past history
of mankind, its unfolding in the present, its expan-
sion in the future — until, borne on the swift wings
of faith, we behold at last the complete Humanity,
the perfect Man united for ever to Divinity ; and
hear that innumerable host crying, from eternity to
eternity, in awe and love and rapture — " Father,
hallowed be Thy name."

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THE NATURE OF MAN

What is man thai thou art mindful of him, and the

son of man that thou visitest him f

Psalm viii. 14

REVELATION," said Lessing, "is education
coming to the human race." But from
whom and how ? that is the question I Well, if
there be a God who is the fountain of truth, Reve-
lation must come from Him, for it is the unveiling
of truth. Here, in this church dedicated to God,
we believe in God, in whom all truth is born and
lives; and when truth is unveiled we believe it to
be the deed of God. Others hold another view —
" that there is no divine source of truth, and that
what truth is discovered is the work of man alone."
We have no quarrel with our opponents. Let them
hold their view, and let Time, the old Justice, try
the case, as he will finally do. We hold our own
faith — **that there is an infinite truth beyond us,
which is communicated to man by Him in whom the
truth abides." We assume His existence, and we
believe in Him. Truth is revealed by Him. He

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THE GOSPEL OF JOY

watches over the human race, over its slow and sad
development into union with Himself. Why it is
so sad we cannot tell, but we believe that we shall
know hereafter, and that the sadness shall be
drowned in joy. We dimly see that its sorrow and
struggle are the sources of a higher good and a
nobler race than could become without them. At
least we see that the struggle and the pain belong
to the course of nature and human nature; that
we must make the best of them, and trust our
Father's will to be good and loving. It is plain God
does not make us good by force, nor give us all
truth at once. He has laid on man the task of
winning goodness in battle against evil, and of win-
ning truth out of error and darkness ; and we seem
to understand that this is worthy of God, and worthy
of us. So, only, we think, can man, in freedom,
win, like a freeman, noble character, self-forgetful-
ness and knowledge. But, at certain times, in
national or world history, when He sees that evolu-
tion has reached a certain point. He sends — ^and it
has so frequently occurred that it may be called a
law- — a new soul into the world, charged with power ;
not with superhuman power, but with human power
raised to the utmost point it can reach at that period
of human development. A genius, as we call it,

is born. A new start is given to the world. An

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THE NATURE OF MAN

elect soul is sent forth to do a vast work ; and
this is the truth hidden underneath the doctrine of
election. And his work is a revelation, an unveiling
of truth.

This is, we say, the doing of God who directs the
advance of mankind ; — and we see now how it is
done. It is always done through men ; it seems to
be part of the course of Nature. It is not miracu-
lous ; it violates no law : it is contained in the law of
progress. The coming of a genius is of constant
occurrence ; and it occurs in every sphere of human
endeavour towards truth — in government, in science,
in poetry, in painting, in music, in general litera-
ture, in philosophy, in morals, and in religion ; in
the things of intellect, of the imagination, of the
conscience and of the spirit. We believe that this
is the work of God ; and we may fairly challenge
the evolutionist who denies God to explain the
occurrence of genius. The attempts already made
have broken down.- No theory of heredity, no
struggle for existence, no survival of the fittest, ex-
plains the coming into humanity of Shakespeare, of
Mozart and Raffaelle, of Stephenson, of La Place, of
Buddha, Moses, or Mohammed. The work of these
men is to gather into themselves all the scattered
forms and shreds of truth which have been, before
their time, attained in the spheres in which each of

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THE GOSPEL OF JOY

them works ; to generalise them, and to send forth
the main truth in which they all inhere, and which
together they make up. They thus embody all the
past. Secondly, when they unveil that master
truth, they awake and kindle all the activity of the
present, and start the world upon a new career.
And, thirdly, they invariably open out and pro-
phesy the future. Their work unfolds the possi-
bilities of the coming age, and contains them. They
are the revealers, and what they say and do is
revelation.

Thus did Giotto for the art of painting in Florence.
He started the world of art afresh. Thus did
Chaucer in England and Dante in Italy for the
art of poetry. Thus did Beethoven for music.
Thus did Newton for the science of the universe ;
thus did Darwin for another realm of science ; thus
did Wordsworth when poetry needed a new creation ;
thus did Turner for the representation of nature.
Thus have done a thousand men in the history of
the development of mankind.

These men who have absorbed the past, re-created

the present and prophesied the future, have differed

from ordinary men, as a whole differs from its parts.

They are unaccountable by science. Many of them

have sprung out of the poor and uneducated strata

of society. Their powers are amazingly beyond the

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THE NATURE OF MAN

common capacities of men. They are not super-
natural, but they almost seem so. They are in
reality an extraordinary heightening of the natural ;
and this is more or less proved by the intensity of
the humanity which belongs to them. To be more
human than other folk is their essential difference.
That is the way God makes them ; and the truths
they reveal are equally divine and human.

Well, what is true in these spheres which men
in their folly call profane, is true in the sphere of
religion. The man of genius in religion, in those
things which belong to the Spirit in man, is called a
prophet. And ever since the race began to move
towards the Spirit of God, God has sent men full of
spiritual truth, as the world could bear it, as it was
needed — first, to reveal His nature, and secondly,
to disclose the true inward life of human nature.
They come, they gather all the spiritual ideas of the
past, and re-clothe them; they take up all the float-
ing, unorganised spiritual ideas of the present, and
put them into forms which can be used and loved ;
and they put forth new ideas with regard to God
and man in which the spiritual work of the future is
contained. They are revealers, and their work is
revelation. There have been hundreds of such
men in all nations. And there will be thousands

more, for Truth in God is infinite. When the time

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THE GOSPEL OF JOY

arrives, there may come one who will teach us
further developments of the truth that Jesus taught
in Galilee. But that time is not yet, for we have
not yet assimilated, nor half fulfilled, the truths
that Jesus taught. Till we have done that, we can-
not produce that state of things in which a further
development of them is possible. Yet there is, even
to our eyes, some progress making now. What that
teaching was concerning God as a Father — what it
was concerning the truth of life being found in self-
forgetful love — these are points of it which are
becoming clearer in these days. In the last thirty
years the progress in the knowledge of them and
in their practice has been extraordinar}'. But what
Christ revealed concerning man — that is still dark,
still almost unconceived ; and it is of first-rate im-
portance. God loves man as a Father. Man can
love God. If all are children, all are brothers, and
brothers love one another. These things of Christ are
clear. But what necessarily lies beyond these is
not yet clear. " That if man can love God and his
fellow men — man must be, by nature, not evil but
good. The root of his nature is good. That is the
revelation of Christ concerning us — and the world
has not yet comprehended it, and has never worked
it out. Man, down to the very worst and meanest, is

worthy of the love of God. To declare that doctrine

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THE NATURE OF MAN

to be true is the worst of heresies in the eyes of the
believer and the unbeliever. Yet it is simply another
form of saying that God is a father and that men are
His children, one and all. But with this truth as it is
in Christ — that man is by nature gcod and not evil,
of God and not of the devil — no peace is kept by the
creeds and the confessions, by the philosophers, and
by the pessimists. On this matter the Calvinist, and
the Materialist, the Agnostic, and the orthodox,
the indifferent man of the world, the philosophic
moralist, the fanatic, and the cool politician, are
in unexpected and exquisite harmony. They all
deny the doctrine of Jesus. To say that all men, even
the worst, are worth loving and worth saving is
either detestable heresy, or wicked folly, or in the
teeth of facts. And they move heaven and earth to
prove that Christ did not say it, or if He did, that
He knew nothing about the facts of human life.
There is almost no instance of any form of theo-
logical belief in which the doctrine that man is
naturally unworthy of the love of God has not been
one of the foundation stones of their scheme of
thought. Many philosophic and scientific statements
with regard to the human race exclude into the
darkness of failure, ruin and death even more men
and women than the theologians send to the hell they
have created. Everywhere one view prevails. But

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THE GOSPEL OF JOY

I am bold to say that human society is sick and
weary of the doctrine that man is unworthy of the
love of God ; and is longing for another doctrine.
By-and-by men and women will find out, to their
vast astonishment, not only that Christ held the con-
trary; but that till we hold what He held, there
is no chance of any permanent social, moral, and
spiritual progress. The doctrine of the natural evil
of man, whether in its theological or scientific form,
is the curse of the human race ; the origin, in the
ultimate reason, of almost every oppression and
wickedness against which, so long as we hold that
evil is of the very nature of man, we contend so
vainly.

Things have got so terribly wrong in societies,
that it might be well to go back to Jesus ; well to
understand what He meant by saying that men
belonged to God as children to a Father, that is,
by nature ; and to work the history of the world
upon the basis of that thought. It would be a new
exj>eriment ; it would take along time even to begin
it ; but it has never been done, it has never even
been touched. The Christian Churches, as bodies
of organised thought and practice, have always
opposed it ; the philosophers have always mocked it.
It has been to the Jews a stumbling-block, to the

Greeks foolishness. It is indeed difficult to believe it,

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THE NATURE OF MAN,

or to work it at present. The basis of it in the minds
of men is naturally beyond the understanding. It is
built on faith in two things incapable of what we
call proof — belief in absolute Love with a relation to
us which we call personal ; and belief in progressive
immortality — and faith of this kind is very difficult
in a world which, as now, is in a state nearly
resembling slavery to the reasoning faculty, and
worse still, boiling over with pride in its slavery.

It would be especially difficult to work it out in a
society like ours of Europe, where the social results
of the other doctrine are so complete ; so deeply
rooted in its class system, in its Churches, in its re-
ligious intolerance ; in its conduct to the poor, the
outcast and the criminal ; in its tendency to be care-
less of the individual. Yet the difficulty should only
make us more eager to proclaim, though all the
world should combine to crucify it, the doctrine of
Jesus — That every human being, in virtue of his
humanity which is as directly from God as a child is
from his father, is destined to reach perfection with
his Father ; that every human being is summoned,
by a call which he will find irresistible at last, to
immortal union with the Deity ; and is certain to
live finally in the doing and thinking of divine
righteousness and love, and therefore in absolute

blessedness. This was the good news, the Gospel,

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THE GOSPEL OF JOY

which Jesus held in His heart, and gave to the
world ; but few could recognise its fulness. Men
felt it, and lived it, but they did not think it.
But we, taught by history, ought to begin to think
it now, as well as to feel it. No one had said
this about man till Christ said it. Many men, in
scattered utterances, had called God a Father, and
Jesus confirmed and extended that revelation of
God's character. But what was unique in His teach-
as a religious teacher was His revelation to man of
what man was. Man was not the child of evil
matter, or of the spirit of evil, but the child of the
divine essence, and of the Spirit of all good. His
nature was not destined to fall lower and lower, but
to rise higher and higher. Man would have to go
through evil, but in the battle would attain clear
personality, and clear consciousness of God and of
himself In that indelible kinship with God, all were
one, and equal, and brethren. No evil on man's
part should make us lose the belief in that truth.

This was His revelation concerning man, and in it
Jesus stands alone among the prophets. It was not
only the original, it was the central thought, of all His
teaching. Everything He said and did radiated from
it and converged to it. The rule of His own conduct,
the faith by which He lived and for which He died,

the inspiration of His joy and His sorrow was this —

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THE NATURE OF MAN

that, as a man, He was by nature and by right one
with God ; and that however far He might wander
away, He was, of necessity, to become at one with
the character of the Father. When He said, " I and
the Father are one," He said it not of Himself
alone.

And the practical meaning this truth should have
for us is this — that because we are already by right
and nature children of God, we are bound to become
so in very deed and fact ; to be what God is — loving,
just, pure, merciful, true ; and to be conformed in life
to His image. And this is the natural evolution of
our human nature, and its attainment our deepest
glory and happiness.

Whatever is opposed to that — evil and its whole
brood— is not the normal development of the root
of our nature, but a falsification and degradation
of it; is unnatural, not natural. All life lived for
this world alone, for what is material, transient,
perishable ; for wealth and rank and fame in and for
themselves alone — is unnatural for those who belong
by nature to the spiritual, the eternal, the imperish-
able ; whose wealth is the treasures of love, whose
rank is pre-eminence in goodness, whose fame is in
self-forgetfulness I

Such is the true work of this thought on the indi-
vidual life. But it passes on beyond the individual.

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THE GOSPEL OF JOY

The natural worth of man, because of his capacity
to be at one with love and righteousness and to grow
up into them ; his natural kinship with God as a
child to a father ; the conception of all men as brothers
which follows upon that truth, and the duties which
therefore bind us to each other ; the spiritual and
eternal community of all men in the Fatherhood of
God — these are the foundation of all noble and en-
during democracy ; the only foundation on which the
great political thoughts of liberty, equality, and fra-
ternity can build themselves into an enduring temple
for the human race ; the only foundation on which
the permanent conceptions of the general movement
which we call Socialism will be able to stand, when,
in the concentrated war to come, the rains descend,
and the floods come, and the winds blow, and beat
upon its house.

On every other foundation — on that of self-interest,
of man's natural evil, of scientific utilitarianism, of
mere ethics, of mere individualism, of the worship
of humanity apart from the Fatherhood of God —
democracies, liberties, equalities, fraternities, social-
isms, will fall, as they have fallen again and again,
into the foul ruin of some tyranny or some imperial-
ism ; or into some terrible philosophic government
which will encourage individualism till it end in

anarchy, or encourage collectivism till it end in the

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• THE NATURE OF MAN

blotting out of that individuality which is so potent
an element in human progress.

From these false extremes we are saved by Christ's
twofold conception of the life of man. On one side,
we are asked for the fullest social sacrifice, the
sacrifice of self for the sake of the whole of humanity ;
on the other side, our individuality is saved by
bringing our inner life into a direct, personal and
lonely relation to God our Father.

We see both these in His life ; He gave up His life
for His fellow men to the last drop of giving, but He
never lost His individuality. He retained that by
bringing His whole inner life into a close and personal
union with God. And He left this twofold life, at
once collective and individual, to us as a legacy.
We were, in our relation to our fellow men, to give
up all our selfish thoughts and ways, and live and
die for one another. That secures collectivism. We
were, towards God, in the personal solitudes of the
soul, to live as a separate spirit, as a child with its
father, in a distinct life of thought and love. That
secured individualism ; yet without selfishness, for
union with God was necessarily union with absolute
love.

Hence we return to the same idea with which we
began. Every man is a separate soul, destined to his
own perfection, destined to fulfil one phase, one part

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THE GOSPEL OF JOY

of a vast and united whole ; and born to represent,
in the great humanity to be, one element of the
manifold being of God ; and for this he is always
being educated, through many lives, up to his personal
immortality. As such, he is more worth, in himself,
than the whole material universe.

In this work of God, done with the slowness of
a king who respects the free development of his
people, we are called upon to join in proportion to
our growth. We do that work of help and educa-
tion along with God our Father. And, of course,
it is not only the best for whom we are to care,
not only the intelligent and the healthy whom we
are to select, but those who are least good, least
wise, and most diseased ; not only the most cul-
tured classes and the most civilised nations on
whom we are to spend our pains, but the most
degraded, the most savage, and the lowest in the
scale. These are children of God as well as we, and
the same purpose of God is with them. We are
here to help that purpose, to believe in it and to
work for it. This is the true ground of all redeem-
ing work among the most savage tribes of the earth ;
among the criminals, the self-degraded, the weak anc}
miserable victims of life in our fine civilisation ; —
and this is the faith in which we do a work which

needs a vivid inspiration ; for we know, only too

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THE NATURE OF MAN

well, how often its seeming failures tend to hope-
lessness.

But when we have faith in God the Father of men,
and in the progressive immortality of men which
naturally follows from that faith, there ought to be
no such thing as hopelessness. Indeed, no shred
of work ddhe in this belief, and for love of God, can
ever be lost. It is a seed certain of its harvest.
The Christian servant goes to his work among the
criminals in all classes of society, among those lost
in idleness and selfishness, among the outcasts and
the ruined, with thoughts which are mighty for
redemption, *'The souls," he says, "to whom I
speak, are children of the highest, though they seem
children of the lowest. The divine is in them,
though it seem lost. I will find it and touch it into
life. Jesus loved the lost and miserable, the harlot
and the thief; and believed in their underlying
goodness ; and so will I. It is not the will of our
Father that any of these little ones should perish.
Nay, it is His will that they glorify Him for ever in
love and holiness. This is the work God has called
me to do with Him, hand in hand and heart in heart.
And I go forth in His might, conquering and to
conquer." No tongue can tell the good that men
who thus believe are doing on the savage, sensual,
selfish, idle, violent, and victimised classes of society.

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THE GOSPEL OF JOY

But there are also thousands who have nothing to
do with crime, who are not lost in moral ruin ; but
who are poor, oppressed, and oftentimes despised —
men and women who live in daily trouble, in a
desperate battle for existence ; others, not so ill off,
who yet have no leisure, few opportunities for im-
provement, who never get into a larger world of
thought, of beauty, or of knowledge. These are the
poor of the land, and because they have just the
means to live, and are too proud to make complaint,
very little care is given to them. When Christ
came into His work He found Himself among a
multitude of them, and threw Himself with all His
ardour on their side. The first blessing He pro-
nounced was pronounced on them. " Blessed are the
poor, for theirs is the kingdom of God." The climax of
His account of His work was this — **The poor have
the gospel preached to them." The test of the
judgments to be given at the close of life was made
to turn on whether men had visited, healed, com-
forted, fed, and clothed the poor ; and those who had
done these things had done them to Himself. " Inas-
much as ye have done it to the least of these my
brethren, ye have done it unto me." It is good to
hear that ringing in our ears. In obedience to its
voice lies at present half our work. Let us do it

steadfastly, in the spirit of Christ, in faith in God's

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THE NATURE OF MAN

inevitable Fatherhood ; and, as the years move on,
the days at last will come, as they ought to come,
when the poor shall cease always to be with us.
But even then the duties of this faith shall not be
exhausted. The work which this eternal principle
of humanity and human life carries with it will find
fresh developments in fresh societies.

Prove by your work that you believe that all men
are the children of God our Father. Prove that you
believe all men are knit to you as brothers ; that all
are akin to your life. Prove that you believe that
at the root of the heart of all men is goodness and
not evil, beauty not ugliness, love not selfishness ;
and that these divine seeds can be quickened into
life, and brought to full fruitage in union with God.
Act on that belief in the teeth of all the evil and
wrong of the world. Prove that you believe in the
infinite worth to God of every man, however lost,
however wicked ; and in the worth of every man to
the whole of humanity. That faith of Jesus is
the faith that conquers souls for God and man.
And finally, should any of you not be as yet able to
see the world of men in the Father — see them as
Christ saw them ; see them as your brothers ; be-
lieve in their future ; hope and work for the coming
of a nobler, simpler, justcr, more pitiful, and lovelier

world.

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WHAT? IN EXCHANGE FOR THE

SOUL

WHAT? IN EXCHANGE FOR THE

SOUL

For what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole
world and lose his own soul ? Or what shall a man give
in exchange for his soul ?

St. Mark viii. 36, 37

WHAT a passionate note there is in this cry !
A world of thought and feehng fills its
voice. It came out of the depths of the heart of
Jesus. He, at least, believed in the soul; and at
present it is not a common belief. Men believe
firmly in money, and they show their faith by their
works, night and day spending and being spent in
its service. Men believe in social repute. It seems
a glorious thing that they should be pointed out
with the finger — and their life, often their honour, is
swallowed up in the labour their faith demands.
Men believe in Science, not indeed so far as to help
it with money. That would be to infringe the larger
and deeper faith in Cash, the true God ; but they
confess her as a mistress and worship her, when

she invents machinery which empowers them to fill

263

THE GOSPEL OF yOY

their own pockets expeditiously, and to empty the
pockets of others with equal expedition. But when
Science does not help them to anything but thoughts
and knowledge, they only believe in it then as a
means which enables them, they think, to pooh-pooh
the soul " We are all matter," they say, " or mere
machines, the necessary results of the past. Science
says so. Why worry then about honour and mercy,
and justice and honesty ? Let us fill up the full
measure of our pockets by any means we can. All
the rest is mere sentiment." Thus do they use the
noble creature Science ; and the worst of her is that
she does not complain.

They also believe in morality, that is, in what the
law declares to be criminal and not criminal, and in
what society declares is moral or immoral. To obey
the law, and the maxims and social arrangements
of society, is to be moral ; to disobey them is to be
immoral ; and their faith in this obedience being the
whole duty of man is so astonishing that they
actually call themselves moral persons at the very
time when they are deliberately violating both jus-
tice and mercy in support of the opinions of their
world. Those opinions justify them in any action
which does not bring them into the Courts of Law ;
or which is supported or ignored by the sentence

of their society. But, as to belief in eternal prin-

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WHAT? IN EXCHANGE FOR THE SOUL

ciples which have nothing to do with earthly laws
or social opinion ; which exist above these things ;
and which in their own lives ought to rule over
their acts and thoughts, independent of legal or
social judgments — as to such a belief as that, it
does not enter into their faiths at all. It has
** nothing to do with practical life."

What those who have, in Christ's thought, gained
a soul, call ''practical life,'' is a life which helps
mankind into greater happiness ; and it is only lived
by the power of self-forgetfulness. What they call
practical life is to care and labour for nothing which
does not increase their income, or build up their
personal power. It is only lived by the power of
incessant self-remembrance, and it lessens the happi-
ness of mankind. With the latter kind of practical
life faith in the soul is at war. It would be curious
if the soul had anything to do with it, and the fact
is, they who follow that life naturally deny the soul.
** The soul ! " they say, " what is that ? I don't
know what it means. There's no proof of it : it does
not interest me ; and it bears no interest. I cannot
make ten per cent, out of it." No, indeed, you
cannot ; you are more likely to lose ten per cent,
by believing in it. Moreover, you must have
experienced something of what it is '' to have a

soul " before you can believe in its worth, or know

265

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

what it means, or what Jesus meant when He
spoke of it.

He did not mean a personal, selfish thing inside
of you which was in danger of hell-fire or punish-
ment, and which had first to be saved from them,
and then put into a comfortable position in heaven.
But He did mean all those qualities and their har-
mony which make up in a man, in a society or in
a nation, a character like the character of God, our
Father. He meant that inward state, which, being
in a man, is a state of salvation ; a state in which
he cannot think evil, mean and selfish things, in
which he cannot do these things, in which he
would rather die than do them. He meant that
within a man there were wrought together into a per-
sonal entity directly bound up with God, purity and
righteousness, meekness and temperance, humility
and graciousness ; the power to make peace, and
to bestow forgiveness; the powers of tenderness
and pity and mercy, and a passionate love, practice
and worship of these. He meant the inward
possession of a character like His own in relation
to man — of justice and truth done to humanity,
of faith and hope in God and Man ; and He meant
a life ruled by these, and obeying nothing else till
these were first obeyed. He meant the kingship

of Love over all these qualities, so that the whole

266

whatp in exchange for the soul

man lived by his love of God and by his love of man,
and produced in all his thoughts great-mindedness,
and in all his works great-doing, so that his thoughts,
words, feelings and acts were clothed with beauty as
with a robe of the starry sky. For Beauty accom-
panies these qualities of the soul. Where they are,
she abides; where they are not, there she is not.
Indeed she is a part of the soul. And it is quite in
harmony with this, that the mass of persons who do
not believe in the soul, do not care a straw for
beauty. She herself, the spiritual thing, vanishes
when the base material touches her ; abhors to be
bought or sold for money; refuses to be a rarity
which can be paraded for show or used as a means of
repute ; and dwells with the other immaterial powers
of the soul in her simple forms, clothed in the white
and gold of the quiet daisies, and with the eternal
reproof of ostentation and riches in her eyes.

To have a soul, then, is not a profitable thing, as
the world counts profit. It is even less than profit-
able. Its elements are against the profit the world
desires. There is nothing so damaging to the
getting or keeping of selfish wealth as righteousness
and justice and mercy. Sacrifice of self is the
undying foe of covetous accumulation. Humility,
truth, honesty, boldness of speech in defence of

the oppressed, a clean front against idleness, hold-

267

THE CospeL of JO'i

ing to principles of love which society repudiates,
will not allow you to use many of the means the
world around you uses in order to succeed. Yes,
these qualities of the soul, faithfully brought into
act, will often mean worldly failure ; and if you keep
them, you will have to be ready for that which men
call loss. Again and again in life, you have to make
that choice, sometimes in small matters, sometimes
in large. And it is time you gather yourself together,
and choose whether you will serve the world or the
soul.

The sands of life are running out. The power of
choice diminishes as the sands diminish. You are
becoming set, as your bones have set. What profit
are you going to have, the profit of the world or of
the soul ; the profit for yourself, or that which is for
God and man? How long halt ye between two
opinions ? If the Lord be God, follow Him ; but if
Baal, follow him.

That was the question Jesus was asking all His

life long. That is the question His own life placed

with absolute clearness before the world I Where

was the gain in His life? Did He win wealth?

Did He win social repute ? Was He the favourite

of the Church or the State in Jerusalem ? Did

He even continue to be the favourite of the people ?

The success which marked the first year of His

268

WHAT? IN EXCHANGE FOR THE SOUL

ministry, did it mark the second or the third ?

Did the " higher classes " ever take Him up, or if they

did for a short period, did they not drop Him as if

He burned their hands ? What was the reason of

it ? The reason was that He clung to the soul. He

held fast to love and justice and mercy and simplicity ;

to the kingdom of heaven within, not to the kingdom

of heaven in the shape of a kingdom on earth I Finally,

all He gained from the world was its hatred and a

felon's death. But He had the profit He meant to

have : He gained the soul and its unity with God.

" I and my Father are one," He said. He won and

brought to perfection within Him the eternal and

glorious powers of justice and righteousness, love

and truth, honour and faithfulness, lowliness and

hope, courage and endurance, tenderness and pity,

imagination and beaut}', noble sorrow, inward joy,

the strength of prayer, the peace of His Father in

His heart ; the power of love over the heart of man ;

power to lead them to love one another as He loved

them, power to guide them into the perfection of

God. This was the full life of the soul, and this

was His gain.

Have you done something of that work ? Have

you gained your soul, or do you lose it day by day ?

Are you with Jesus, or with those who crucified Him ?

I do not ask you, like so many, " Have you saved

269

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

your soul ; are you safe ? " I do ask you, " Have

you got a soul at all, in the sense of which He spoke?"

Have you got within you the powers and qualities of

the divine life, the powers of Christ ? Are they so

living and full within you that they rule over your

whole life, direct and check your action, order and

temper your thoughts so that nothing is felt towards

God which they do not encourage ; nothing done in

your business, in your society, which may not be

brought before the tribunal of these judges, and

approved of by their sentence ? Then, you are

saved, to use that much-abused term. If you have a

soul at all, salvation is yours, salvation from the

dreadful state which believes that the gain of the

world is the true object of the life of man. Then,

too, you will understand the pitiful cry of Jesus,

What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole

world and lose his own soul ? What, indeed, shall

it profit him ? When the fierce trials of life descend

on us, rain and wind and sweeping flood ; desperate

duty; overwhelming sorrow; corrupting treachery;

loss of love; loss of all we cherished; when long

disease isolates us ; when death, chilling the air

with its incomparable solitude, stands beside our bed,

— what do our riches and our repute, our pleasure and

our madness profit us ? Where are they for helpers

and strengtheners in our hour of bitter need ? They

270

WHAT? IN EXCHANGE FOR THE SOUL

have fled to the world of pleasure or gain we do not
care for now. In those dread solitudes there is no
support but God living in the soul, quickening its
powers, filling them with the love of Jesus, making
them happy with the love of man. Alas I if you
have lost these powers ; if, never fed by their own
food, they have starved to death ; if there be no
soul at all within you ; nothing but the gain of the
world, and the temper living for self alone has made
in you — what profit have you ? On what founda-
tion do you stand when the wide world crumbles
beneath your feet, and your life is searched through
and through by your awakened eyes ?

Then, if you wjsh to test the matter further, ask
not only '* What profit you have from losing what
Jesus meant by the soul," but also " What profit this
life of yours has brought to man ? " That is a crite-
rion all will understand. When you have gained the
whole world for yourself, what have men gained from
you ? It is almost a truism, so multitudinous is the
evidence, that in proportion as you gain for your-
self, you make others lose ; just as, in proportion as
you lose yourself, you benefit others. There are
different degrees of this, but the truth is, that in pro-
portion as a man, gaining the world, loses his soul —
that is, loses righteousness, love, faith in man, mercy,

justice, tenderness, imagination and beauty — in that

271

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

proportion he loses the power of doing good to man-
kind, and may do miserable harm, even though he
may have so much of a phantom soul as to hate the
very notion of injuring mankind. He may wish to
do good to men, wish vaguely and helplessly to
comfort or strengthen human life — but till he find the
powers of the soul he cannot do this ; and unless he
make a giant effort, such as God's spirit enables us
to do, his selfishness deepens. What little soul he
had is lost, and the judgment at the end is just :
" Take the unprofitable servant into the outer dark-
ness." Only there, only in realising the misery of
the isolation in which he abides who has lost all that
makes the soul, will he long to gain a soul, and in
weeping, and out of his despair, at last attain it.

So far for our personal life, but the law has yet
another hold upon us. Classes of men, societies
and nations have souls, or ought to have them ; that
is, they ought to have in them righteousness, justice,
love, mercy, truth, all the qualities of the soul;
and everything they do and think in their congre-
gated lives ought to be ruled by these — ^ruled, that is,
by the soul. What shall it profit a class if it gain
the whole world and lose its soul ?

There is the class in this country who are

determined to keep their wealth and their privileges

intact. I take here no political side for or against

2^^

WHAT? IN EXCHANGE FOR THE SOUL

them. I only say that if in the process they lose
their soul, if they lose honesty, justice, love, pity,
and the rest, then though they gain all their effort,
they ruin themselves and damage the nation.

There is the great class at the root of public
life who are " struggling for their rights," they say,
who want to get their own way — the working men,
the labourers, the poor. They have defined their
wants. It is not my business at present to approve
or blame them, but it is to say to them that if in
the struggle they do not keep close to the soul,
cherish and obey justice and love, forgiveness and
honesty, and the rest, they will destroy their cause
and injure mankind, even when they most seem to
win that cause.

There are the parties who in politics are strug-
gling for power. The opinion has often prevailed
that to gain the power is everything, and that the
means do not matter. That opinion is false, and has
been one of the worst curses of mankind. Parties
that gain the whole world they want, and in the con-
test have not obeyed righteousness ; who have injured
love, neglected mercy, violated justice, played false
with truth, betrayed at any point the great causes
and ideas of an honest state ; who have tempted
the weak to wrong, or enslaved themselves to the

powerful, for the sake of winning ; who have not

273 s

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

principles which they will not violate to win all the
success in the worid — have lost their soul, have
won no true advantage, and are already over-
thrown by their success. They have damaged what
was good in their cause, and they have wronged
humanity.

There is the steady effort which the capitalists in
England are now making for mastery ; there is the
effort which labour is making against the capitalists.
It is not my business here to approve or to blame
either section, but it is my business to say that if
either side, during the strife, or after the victory,
lose their soul — if they lose the sense of justice
between man and man; if they forget that men,
being God's children, are brothers one of another,
knit together by love ; if in victory, they are greedy
of self-interest or cruel ; if they do \\Tong to
freedom, if they are not magnanimous, if they
become incapable of forgiveness — there will be po
true advantage to themselves in their success, and
they will do harm to mankind. The true winning, the
real victory remains in all these cases to those who
keep their soul, who would rather fail in the out-
ward effort than violate righteousness, justice, pity,
freedom and honour. No success is worth a straw
in which the soul is lost. What will it profit any

class if it gain the whole world for itself, and lose

274

WHAT? IN EXCHANGE FOR THE SOUL

all that makes humanity worth having, all that
makes the true life of any society ?

Lastly, there are other matters which have to do
not with a party or a class, but with the spirit of a
whole nation ; and I think that which all nations
want most to have written over their gates, and
graven on their hearts, now, is this : " What advan-
tageth it a nation if it gain the whole world and lose
its soul ? What shall a nation give in exchange for
its soul ? " Yes, what shall it give ? I am happy,
so far as I think of my country, when I see so many
within her who are steadily living for those divine
powers which make the soul a living being; who
are struggling quietly against those powers by
which the soul is lost ; who love justice more than
wealth, and simplicity more than splendour, and
honesty more than a full purse, and love of man
more than love of their family, and pity more than
legality, and aspiration that fails more than prudent
choice which succeeds I In these is the life-blood
of our people These are they who will live for the
old traditions of the land, in support of which she
gains her soul. In these she still realises the mag-
nanimity, the sacrifice, the readiness to give up all
for an idea, which have made her greatness; in
these still lives the imaginative pursuit of the un-
known, of what seems impossible; in these still

275

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

dwell and work the deep conviction of duty, the
grave obedience to the country's call for the sake of
public right ; the contempt of mere wealth and
fame, the sacrifice of them for great causes; the
preference for a quiet and simple life ; the hatred of
mere luxury and its curses in a nation; and the
deep passion, at any loss, to support religious and
civil liberty all over the world. This it is which
makes her influence over the minds of men, which
establishes her dominion. Without it, her power,
huge as it seems, is smitten with mortal disease.
Other nations (prosperous as she is now) have
fallen into dreadful ruin — Egypt, Assyria, Persia,
Rome the Empire, Venice. Why did they fall?
In every case it was that they had lost their soul !
Oh, it is time for us, as citizens, to remember the
words of Christ Jesus, to live, not only for our own
sake, the life of the soul, but to live it also for the
sake of our country ; to keep not only our own soul
in harmony with God's character, but also the soul
of our nation ; to ask ourselves daily not only
" What advantageth it me if I gain the whole world
and lose my soul ? " but also " What advantageth it
my well-loved England if it gain the whole world to
its dominion, and lose its soul ? What shall England
give in exchange for her soul ? "

276

WHAT IS THE LIFE OF MAN?

/ must work the works of Him that sent me.

St. John ix. 4

THIS was the view which Jesus took of human
life. Life was labour; ploughing, sowing,
reaping, harvesting. The world was our farm, and
we came into it, not to lie under the trees in the
sun, or beside the brook in the shade, but to till it
and keep it and make it fruitful for our fellow-men.
And this was an imperative duty. " I must work,"
He said ; and the imperative came from God without
Him, and from God within Him. He looked on the
universe without, and though He knew nothing of
physical science, yet He saw the whole world in
reproductive movement : incessant birth, incessant
death that new life should be born ; unfailing
provision for the continuance and support of life ;
unfailing production of things which inspired
desire to find out their secret, and so made know-
ledge ; and love of their beauty, and so made art.
This is God, He thought, God in hourly labour.
" My Father worketh hitherto, and I work."

279

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

From God within Him also this imperative of
labour came. He heard in His heart, as we hear it,
a cry which drove Him like a goad; and He knew,
as we know, what it meant. " Give yourself away,"
it cried, " shape what is in you into bread and wine
for man." He heard it in the urging outwards of
His heart when He was young as yet, and learning
how to live. He understood that the un-content
He felt was, in reality, the weariness of the human
soul until its powers, used in work, were in harmony
with the laws of the universe. He learned, before
He went to meet the Baptist, that life must be pro-
duction for others, and therefore, self-renunciation.

Was He not right ? When is our restlessness
worst, when is our wandering desire most disturbing,
when is our conscience most wakeful, barking like a
watch-dog? It is when we are drifting through
life as if it were a dream, or doing strenuously
that which bears no fruit I That great Imperative
haunts us as incessantly as the wind pursues the
clouds, until we become a part of it, part of the
Wind of Duty. Nor is there any freedom from
it ; and if we take a fancied freedom, we are soon
weary of it. That is our punishment for breaking
this law — weariness of life. Our desires become
a burden — " Me," said Wordsworth, " this un-
chartered freedom tires ; I feel the weight of chance

»8q

WHAT IS THE LIFE OF MAN ?

desires/* Even our amusements become sad in idle-
ness ; beauty and joy fade out of life. We cease
at last to admire, to hope and love — and even, while
we desperately seek variety, variety departs.

But there is another side to this. A greater part
of the men and women of these islands work hard
enough. I do not speak of men whose work is
imposed on them by the need of food and shelter,
but of men fairly well off who cannot rest from
labour, who spend a lifetime in building a fortune.
These work themselves into slavery, into stupidity,
and finally into inability to work. They reach then,
through over-labour, the selfsame condition which
the idler reaches. They too are weary. Beauty, joy,
pleasure, variety, the power of living and admiring
have left them ; and when enforced leisure comes
through idleness or through misfortune, they have no
interests beyond their work, nothing to do or think
about, nothing to care for. And they are bored
beyond conception. Then, if not before, their con-
science turns restlessly within them, like a sick man
on his couch ! What is the matter ?

They have also broken the law of the universe
by working for themselves alone. At that point they
are as bad as the idler whom they despise. ' The
idler's sin is doing nothing for man or woman, be-
cause he wishes to please himself. The sin of the

28x

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

selfish worker is just the same — doing nothing for
love, nothing for others. And sometimes the Idler,
if his temper be gentle, kind and affectionate, does
less harm to men than the Worker who accumulates
only for his family.

To both, the further words of Jesus come home
with force. Not only did He say " I must work,"
but " I must work the works of Him that sent me " —
the works of God His Father, whose work was giving,
not getting ; distributing, not accumulating. Giving
away — that was the foundation of God's work, and of
ours. Moreover, God's work has its own character
with which our work must be accordant. I must
work the works of the eternal truth, justice, pity,
long-suffering, love and righteousness. That was
Christ's conception of Life. He felt that His work
was to reveal the character of God ; to make manifest
to men what divine love and justice were, what
mercy, truth and righteousness were in the Highest.
This was the universal work of men, women and
children. This was the highest form of the Impera-
tive of duty.

Is that our conception ? Some of us never con-
ceive that idea at all. "I must work my own works"
is their thought from birth to death ; and very well
they do it. They pile up goods ; they settle their

family ; organise business on business ; get and do

282

WHAT IS THE LIFE OF MAN?

not give ; and then are surprised, when, in old age,
life is loveless and therefore dull, and when decay
brings death near, homeless and unbeautiful. Their
work is not the work of God, nor is it the work
man expects and justly claims from them. It is only
their own ; and now that their hand and brain are
weak, it is their own no more. For there has been
no divine element in it, such as might comfort them
in death, because there has been no love in it, no
harvest for man. No ideal, no hope, no joy illu-
mines it, such as they would now be glad to take
with them into the supreme life. These spiritual
things have been to them shadows, impalpable
fancies, sentimental follies. Tis pitiful. For these
divine powers were the realities of life, the eternal
things amid the transient. O how strangely shall
they who lived thus, be at sea in the world to come
where love and self-forgetfulness are all-in-all !

** O," they say, " I do not believe in all this love, or
in a God who asks for it, or in any claim of humanity
on me, or in a world to come."

No, really? How convenient! How comfort-
able I To do what you like, and not to reap its
fruits ! To be left quite free to feather your own
nest by robbing the nests of others ! To live among
men and never to do anything for them ; to ignore

all your duties to humanity, and then to escape the

283

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

pjenaltyl It is a little too clever. But it is not
true. There is such a thing as retribution. You
shall reap what you have sown. You shall be forced
by God to learn what love is ; you shall be driven
out of your selfishness into self-forgetfulness, till at
last you cry : " God, be merciful to me a sinner."

There are others who do think of this conception
of work which Christ laid down. But they think of
it only to laugh at it. "I cannot work the works
of God," they say, " because I have other matters to
attend to which the world of man requires of me.
It is not my business, but the parson's, to reveal
God's character in daily life. If I did this, I should
be unfit for my work as politician, lawyer, merchant,
doctor, tradesman or mechanic. The labour of the
world would not then be done."

That would be a true objection if Christ had asked

that every man should become a missionary ; if the

works of His Father were only those called spiritual.

But Christ knew the world as well as we know it.

He knew quite well that the work of government, of

knowledge, of commerce, of literature, of manual

labour had to be done ; and the only persons He ever

asked to leave them aside were those who wished to

set themselves apart for the special work of apostles

and ministers of the Gospel. To them He said :

** Leave all, and be fishers of men," but to the mass

284

WHAT IS THE LIFE OF MAN ?

of men He said : " Go back to your home and your

daily life, but do your work in love, in harmony with

the character of God." Done in that fashion, in a

spirit of Christ's love, truth, honesty, purity, pity and

justice ; it is the work of God, of Him that sent us

into the world of men to do His work. We owe

this foolish objection to the division orthodox folk

in the past have made between what they called

" sacred work and profane work," and the last thing

that Christ would have conceived would have been

such a division -

All the honest, unselfish work of the world is

God*s work. God's business on this earth is the

free development of Human Nature ; therefore every

work which strengthens and ennobles the body, the

soul, the intellect and the spirit of man, is His work.

All, therefore, which makes a great character, or a

great nation, is His work. God's business in this

little world is the slow evolution of Humanity through

the effort of free men to perfection. Therefore all

work which is concerned with that is His work —

Science, Art, Literature, Law, Medicine, Invention,

Labour on the Land, Manufacture, Engineering,

Commerce, Trade or even War. Jesus was not so

ignorant of the world of men as some have thought

Him. His intelligence was far too clear to call upon

all men to be ministers or to think that the only work

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THE GOSPEL OF JOY

to be done in the world was preaching and pastoral

work. No, what He meant was that the work of the

world was to be done by us, but in accordance with

the character of God His Father, mastered by the

rule of that character, impelled and restrained by its

attributes, and incessantly pursuing its infinite

perfection. Every human work, done in that spirit,

is a revelation of God, is the work of God.

Then, as the root of God's character was Love, all

the work of the world, done in the spirit of love, in

the spirit of the life of Jesus, was the work of God

Himself. Love spiritualised all work, high and low,

into the divine and beautiful. In it, the highest

work would become higher. Take the work of a

Prime Minister. He may do it with the greatest

ability; but if at the bottom of it be self-interest, or

if it think only of the material wealth of his land,

only of the baser ends of a nation's life — however

able it be, it is not God's work. But if he himself

be void of self-interest ; if he care profoundly for the

moral and spiritual life of his country ; if his policy be

ruled towards unselfishness, towards the greater and

nobler happiness of all his fellow-citizens ; if he

think not only of his own country's greatness, but of

the advance of goodness, truth, justice and liberty

in every nation all over the world, and act for that —

then his work is the work of God who sent him.

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WHAT IS THE LIFE OF MAN ?

In the same way the least regarded work is en-
nobled into divine work, if the spirit of love be
there. The stone-breaker by the roadside who
thinks, as he toils, of his wife and children, with his
heart full of tenderness ; who wonders how he can
help his neighbour who is in trouble, even his enemy
whom he pities ; whose hammer goes to a song in
his heart of gentleness and loving-kindness — he is
working the works of God ! God Himself is in every
stroke of his tool. This thought makes the true
poetry, and is the true religion, of labour.

Above all, we know from the life of Jesus what
was, according to Him, the special work of God. It
was to love all men and to do them good ; to help
them out of trouble ; to let the oppressed go free ; to
bind up the broken-hearted ; to bring deliverance to
the captives ; and to die gladly in this work and for
its sake. This was the main work of God, and this
the doing of it. To do this there is no need to be a
minister of religion ! Have you done it, any part of
it ? Whom have you delivered, helped ; whose lives
have you looked after? It is surely possible to
animate all your work with that principle, to live and
to die for it. We must all know such men and
women. I thank God they are not uncommon in our
country — men who, in politics, in commerce, in pro-
fessional work, in the business of the city, in the

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life of home, in society, in the court and lane, in

shops and factories, in the management of great

estates — keep their soul alive and their conscience

clear, and rule their life by the love of men ; who

recognise their duty to their fellow-citizens, make

them better and happier, and do it with pleasure. Are

they for that, which is to work the works of God

that sent them, in the spirit of Jesus — are they less

good men of business ? Are they incapable merchants?

Are they less active in science, art, or literature ?

Are they useless in a municipality, at the bar, in the

hospital? No, they are the better men, for they

bring loving-kindness, honesty, righteousness and

pity into their work, and its influence for good is all

the greater. That is the true life, and he who lives

in that way works the works of God, and is a follower

and friend of Jesus Christ.

We are born, then, to work the works of God :

that is the law. And by our obedience to that law

we find happiness and finally joy. We are in harmony

with the universe. By our disobedience to it we find

sorrow and pain, and finally exhaustion of all our

powers. Till we are changed, we are outside God,

outside of man. We are banished from the universe,

for all the universe is work for the sake and ends of

love.

And now, how far have we perfected this ? And

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WHAT IS THE LIFE OF MAN ?

have we been true to it ? We may have realised
it partly in the life of manhood and womanhood,
brought it up, and developed it, from youth to later
life's afternoon. But then there is often a check. A
weariness of work comes upon us. We persuade
ourselves we have done enough ; we yield to a sloth
which, at first repelled, grows upon us ; and then the
temptation of later life is upon us, the gravest test
we have to bear. It comes, step by step, like a lion
on a sleeping traveller. The sin of yielding to sloth
and selfishness lies like a beast, crouching for its
spring, on the threshold of the soul. Day by day we
are tempted to lay by the work which is not for our-
selves, but which helps and advances man. We yield
and yield, till at last the little things of that work
become a burden. Day after day less and less is
done. Then the big things are attacked. " What is
the use," we say, "of our doing these matters ? Others
will do them better. I am weary and want some rest.
I may now amuse myself by doing nothing ; sleep
and idle the remainder of my days, or at least take
no trouble about other folk, only about myself and my
own people." ,

What are we doing then ? First, we are weaken-
ing our unselfish powers. That side of our intellect
which thinks for others gets out of the habit of that

thinking, and the less it is used the more difficult it

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THE GOSPEL OF JOY

is to use it. And when we do use it, its products are
not clear; they have lost sharpness, clearness of
form, applicability to the point in question, capability
of being used by others. A sad affair for us ! A
sadder affair for our brother men, for whom we ought
to keep our brains in thorough working order.

Then again, our loving-kindness loses force. Our
powers of feeling, only felt within, and not put into
action without, become only the feeling of feelings.
Pity, indignation, love, felt and not made into acts of
pity or of self-sacrifice, lose their very heart in om*
dainty dreaming, and are turned into their opposites.
Our animation and activity of love, unexercised,
becomes, like the unused muscle, attenuated ; and we
are content to think with pleasure of the times when
we were animated and active — a vile condition. But
the worst wretchedness of these losses does not con-
sist in the damage we do ourselves, but in the loss
of power to benefit mankind, in the loss of power to
do God's work for the salvation and the greater hap-
piness of man. We are guilty to man, and guilty
before God, when we lose our powers in inglorious
ease. We owe ourselves to men and women ; no
amount of work frees us from the duty of keeping
ourselves in the best possible trim, body and soul,
mind and spirit, that we may nobly work the loving

work of Him that sent us.

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WHAT IS THE LIFE OF MAN?

Secondly, we are defrauding mankind. There

is a certain amount of work to be done in this

world. If any of us does not take his full share,

he imposes that which he does not take on the

shoulders of another ; and the first cause of poverty,

of disease, of misery in all States, is the overwork

which is imposed on men and women by the idle and

indifferent members of the nation. This is to steal

from the human race ; to steal from them joy, leisure,

health, comfort and peace, and to impose on them

sorrow and overwork, disease and homelessness, bitter

anger and fruitless tears. This is the curse which

the selfish dreamer leaves behind him. Many have

been the fierce oppressors and defraudersof the human

race, but the evil they have done is less than that

done by those who drop by drop and hour by hour

drain the blood of mankind by doing no work for

the overworked. This is the crime with which the

idle and indifferent will be confronted when the

great throne is set in our soul, and the books we

have written on men's lives are opened, and God

shall lay judgment to the line and righteousness to

the plummet. " Lord, what hast Thou to do with

it ? " we will say. " I did not neglect Thee ; I took

my ease, it is true, but I kept Thy law. I was

never impious, never an atheist. When was I not

religious ? " Then He will answer : " Inasmuch as

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THE GOSPEL OF JOY

ye never worked for the least of these my brothers,
you never worked for me 1 "

This, then, is the temptation we have to ward
ourselves against when the first light frosts of age
begin to fall upon us. Then is the time of our
greatest danger, then the hour, more even than in
youth, when the great choice must be made between
the two paths. If the young go wrong, it is a sorrow-
ful thing, but at least they have time for change,
time to weary of wrong-doing, and, since they are not
set, to change is easier for them. But if in the midst
of middle age we take the turn to sloth or selfishness,
to worldliness or luxury, we are often fixed on that
path for the rest of life ; or if we take it and do change,
the change is terribly difficult It is like the rending
of a great tree out of the soil it has pierced for a
thousand years. The effort tears out our very life-
strings. Therefore now, in the third watch of the
night, now is the time for keen and careful watching
against the temptation to take our ease in selfish
living. Now is the hour for arraying into full activity
all the soldiers in the fortress of the soul, lest the
virtues should be overcome with luxury or wearied
with well-doing. Put on now the whole armour of
God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil
day, and, having done all, to stand. Our wrestling

will not be so very long, and it is pleasant to do it

292

WHAT IS THE LIFE OF MAN?

well, to tighten our grip upon our adversary till the
power of work departs with age.

At last, the time does come when we can do no more.
Age arrives, and nature bids us be quiet Our fellow-
men, seeing that we have done what we could, are
glad to think that we are resting, and God, the Im-
peller in our heart, drives us forth no more, but makes
us at home with Him. All our work lies behind us,
as we look back in the stillness; it seems like a
dream, for we think now more of what is coming than
what is gone. But it is not really a dream. Its results
abide among men and multiply. The harvest of our
work we have brought to ripe corn is now feeding
men, women and children. It is a blessing that God
gives us, to think at times of that, to hear the music
of the gratitude of our fellows in our heart, to know
that, when we die, we shall not be forgotten.

Moreover, even in age, we can do the work that
fits it. The love with which we have lived in the
world, the spirit of tenderness and kindness and
gentleness, which our Master Jesus made the master
of His life — that being immortal, undecaying, lives
in us and works in us as much in age as in youth.
There are old men and women who irradiate the
whole of Ufe around them, with whom to speak is a
lesson in goodness. The spirit of Love pours its
divine beauty into all they say and do. God Himself

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The dospEL OP jov

is within them in His tender power. The life of
Jesus lives in their souls. Thus, even in the shadow
of approaching death, they do the work of Him that
sent them. In that silent house of life, filled with
this divine love, the old man loves mankind as he
never loved them before. Love, the best of all the
powers of man, grows into the keenest life and does
its freshest work when decay and death are close
at hand. This is a prophecy in the aged of the noble
life to come. One touch and we are set free. We
know when the Master comes ; we hear the step of
Eternal Love ; and in joy and peace we say, " All is
finished. What I could of the work Thou gavest me
to do, I have done by Thy power, all-gracious Father.
Into Thy hands I commend my spirit."

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THE IDEAL OF THE KINGDOM

Now we know in part, but then we shall know even as

we are known.

I Cor. xiii. 12

THERE is a story somewhere of a royal race, to
one of whose ancestors a wise magician
promised that, at some time in the future when the
kingdom had need of it, a sage should come, bringing
with him a great diamond, so pure that all the world
would flock to see it and lose their troubles in its
light, so radiant in itself that, where it shone, it
would reveal all things.

Time went on, and the promise worked in the
minds of men ; and all the more as the land got into
trouble. And the royal folk, and the idle people
who cared for splendour, and the priests who wanted
power, and the poor who lived only for bread and
games, began to picture, being dissatisfied with their
life, of what sort the diamond would be, and of what
appearance its bringer. " No doubt," they said,

** he will be a glorious prince, with a regal court,

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THE GOSPEL OF JOY

and a glittering army in his train ! And as to the
stone, let us image it in many ways " ; so they made
huge crystals, a host of them, and hung them up in
the temples, with blazing lamps, and cried, ** These
are as nothing to the splendour, size, and fire of the
diamond that is to come.''

At last, along the streets one day, a poor man,
clad in clean white garments such as the common
people wore, passed through the town, and, coming
to the market-place, stood still, and declared that he
was the carrier of the diamond. '* Here it is," he
said, and drew from his bosom a stone, small in
comparison with the great crystals ; but which, to a
few who looked into it, scintillated with a light so
soft and yet so clear, that joy seemed to pass out of
it into the hearts of the lookers, and contentment
into their lives, and knowledge of the hidden world
into their soul.

But the main part were furious with the poor

man, and said his stone was a piece of rubbish ; and

when he still maintained that he was the sage

prophesied of old, and his stone the true diamond,

they slew him in their anger, and flung the diamond

into the streets, to be picked up and cherished by a

few ; and so returned to worship in the great temples

where the crystals hung, and to finally believe that

the crystals, each of them, were the diamond.

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THE WEAL OF THE KINGDOM

Then, while the diamond itself did its quiet work
among those who loved it — how the others fought
and squabbled, each for his own crystal, and against
the others, no tongue can tell. They deafened the
kingdom with their senseless noise.

The story serves in part to illustrate what happened
when Jesus brought to Jerusalem the true idea of
the kingdom of God. He was no worldly prince ; His
kingdom was not splendid ; the truth He taught was
supported by no armies and no cunning. It was
humble and spiritual; only those who loved could
see it, for it was Love itself.

The thing the Jews had long desired came to
them — the dream of prophets, the hope of the human
heart, the expectation of a thousand years — and
when it came they were unable to see it ; nay, they
hated it I That was very pitiful.

But the matter is not only historical : it is a

common story in daily human life. We start with

some aspiration which, when we are young, is noble ;

with some high conception of our true work and of

its aim. We live by it ; we long for its fulfilment ;

and then, when its true fulfilment comes, we, too,

are unable to see it : nay, we hate that fulfilment,

because it is not what we have painted it ; not what

we, as we lived, have made it to be. That is also a

most pitiful thing in life.

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THE GOSPEL OF yoY

Why did this happen to the Jews ? Why does it

happen to us ? The answer lies in the story of the

idea of the kingdom of heaven, when it came with

Christ to the Jews. Worldliness, love of the things

which change and pass and die, had crept into that

idea, and creeps into our ideal aims. The spiritual

is lured into fornication with the material. We mix

up our youthful aspirations, as the nationalist Jews

did the kingdom of God, with self-seeking, with a

struggle for wealth, with the desire for popular

fame and social position ; till our early ideas have

changed their nature and lost their imaginative

quality ; and when the pure idea comes — that which

holds in it the perfect archetype of all we once

conceived and loved in youth — and brings with it a

trumpet-call to surrender of self, to leave the things

which are dying for those that are living ; having in

its train no splendour of the world, no money, and

no social repute ; but rather temperance and quiet,

and the Cross ; endurance of hardness, battle, and

work in stillness ; all the trappings gone with which

our self-desire clothed it — and says to us, " Here I

am, the pearl of great price. Sell all thou hast and

buy me," we are angry, despise, hate, and reject it I

Driven by the Nemesis of our worldliness, we not

only attack the true aim of our life, we also defend

the false conclusion. Then, there is failure, and

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THE IDEAL OF THE KINGDOM

men, when we are dead, look back and say, ** He
began well, but the end was wretched. He did no
good to mankind. Even more, he did it evil. He
opposed, he injured those who brought the true
ideas. All he ought to have loved he persecuted.
The image his youth aspired to he trampled on in
age. Tis pitiful."

Another way the world blinds us is by its wearing,
grinding power. It passes over us like a heavy
roller and smooths us down into its own convention-
ality. This is the cruel danger of professional and
business work ; of physicians, lawyers, working men,
and merchants ; and a terrible danger for ministers
of God to men. We lose care for ideas, for aspira-
tions, for battling for the good and happiness of
others. All things are done with decency and
respectability, in the way the world expects. Nothing
new is struck out, such as love and imagination
would be sure to do. We have given up our youthful
ideas as foolish dreams. They weary us when they
come to visit us. "There is no good," we say, "no
use in keeping up these things. I will do my
ordinary duty and no more." And so — and infinite
is the pity of it — life becomes apathetic, mere
machine-work, not hand-work. And when the true
idea of our life comes before us, begging for recogni-
tion, we turn it from the door : " I am tired," we

301

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

say, or, "you are not respectable," or, "you look
like an old friend, but I am afraid to own you." So
we lose our true life; and mankind, judging us
afterwards, says, " He was once young and bright
and impelling ; he became a machine, of no good to
us." This is the most common form of the worldli-
ness which is the first reason why we cannot see
the true kingdom when it comes.

The second reason is narrowness of view, made
and supported by personal prejudice. There is a
type of this also in the history of Christ. The youth
of John the Baptist was illuminated by the idea of
the kingdom of God. There was no worldliness, no
self-seeking in his conception of it ; yet when it
came, he also did not see it. In a few years all that
glowing expectation was sunk in disappointment.
He died even more piteously than Savonarola.
Why was this ? The answer is in the narrowness
of his idea of the kingdom. In his view, it began
and ended in the circumference of the Jewish
nation. It faded in his hands, because the time had
come for a universal kingdom, and he could not com-
prehend that extension of it. His prejudices were
too strong for him.

This is often the explanation of our failures. We

limit our ideas, our aspirations, for moral, social, or

political reform, to a class, a sect, a church or set of

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THE IDEAL OF THE KINGDOM

churches, to a political party, to our own society.
We even limit our aims to our own estate or our
own family. What, then, can God do with our
ideas and aims but make them fail in the form in
which we hold them ? Or we insist on their being
carried out in the special shape which our prejudices
have given them — in an individual or a class form —
when humanity wants the idea without any special
form being given to it. Then, if we persist, what
can God do with our passionate hopes but disappoint
them ? Were we to succeed, the world, tied down to
an individual and prejudiced image of the universal
idea, would suffer from a kind of slavery. All freedom
of shaping the idea would be taken from it. Only
those who shared our prejudices, which we call, so
vainly, principles, could use our form of the idea, and
the use would be misuse. That must not be : there-
fore our whole work fails. God blocks it, and justly.
Yet there is a certain success. I have supposed
that these prejudiced persons have not been self-
seeking, and have been righteous in their endeavour.
They have been like John the Baptist. Then the
character they have put into their work tells for
good upon the world, even though their life and
work have been a failure. And the pity the world
feels for their failure increases often the influence of
their character.

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THE GOSPEL OF JOY

Moreover, there is a personal blessedness which
we must not overlook. These men, in the midst of
earthly failure, hear, as the Baptist heard, God's
voice in their hearts. Their righteousness brings
them into union with the Father. They die, not
having realised their aim, not having seen the true
thing, unable indeed to see it, but they are not alone
when they die. The Father, and His peace, are
with ^them. Sad is their life, but they have some
compensation. As in some great picture from
which we turn away in sorrow because the artist
has not been able to represent his thought fully, we
yet see that the spirit of the effort he has made re-
mains an influence among men, and know that the
artist was not all unhappy ; so the spirit of the work
of these men abides. As the artist had done what
he could for beauty and beauty did not desert him
in the end, so the comfort of the Father does not
desert these men who have failed. " Well done,
faithful servant," He whispers in their dying ear.

Once more, the disciples also failed to realise
their hopes. Up to the hour of Christ's death the
true kingdom was with them, and they did not see it.
But afterwards they did see it ; rejected all the world
for its sake ; lost their self and all the life of self in
it ; and spread it far beyond the Jewish world, uni-
versally, over the Gentiles. So, then, there may be

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THE IDEAL OF THE KINGDOM

illusions lost, hopes disappointed, forms of ideas
unfulfilled, failure of aspirations — and yet men re-
cover, find nobler forms of thought, change all the
forms of their views, gain faiths instead of hopes,
and reality instead of illusions I The disciples,
though they had clung to the inadequate, found out
the adequate. Having lived in a false show, they
left it for a city which had foundations.

What saved them ? For it is that which will save
us when all our old ideas, in the form we have given
them, are broken up; when we feel that all our
hopes are failure. Love saved them. It is only
love which, in this dreadful crisis, will enable us to
begin with earnestness a new life, and open our
hearts to the morning of a new endeavour. It was
love that saved them, love of Jesus ; in whose life
they found, when prejudice was gone, the very foun-
tain of passionate Being. This love carried them
away from the old, and poured into them a new
inspiration.

It is always some intense love for what is loving,

for the Christ in human nature, which saves us when

all our life seems to have failed, and all our hopes

are gone. When, through every failure and sorrow,

we keep the power of loving in good health, so

that when we see in some person what is pure and

true we can rejoice and give ourselves to it ; when

305 u

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

we can, borne by the natural expansion of love, go
beyond a personal love, and rejoice and give our-
selves to the love of a great and noble cause, not
losing the personal love, but taking it with us into
the more universal affection ; when, at any moment,
we can thus give ourselves away in love, we can
always forget the failure of the old, and enter into
the life of the new endeavour, of the new conception.
No failure, then, quenches energy, no sorrow conquers
the possibility of joy, no destroyed illusion injures
our power to find a new motive for life. And hence-
forth, when love has its perfect way, we are certain
not to fall into the error of the Pharisees or of John
— the error of selfish materialism, or the error of
limiting prejudice, or the error of mechanical life.
These things cannot breathe in the spiritual and
universal air of love. Yes, this is what we all want,
and especially the ministers of the Gospel — ^love of
the ideas and causes which God has made to grow
in the heart of man, which, appearing in the history
of humanity, are the living wheels, full of eyes
within, by whose movement the chariot of the pro-
gress of man advances. It is not mere intellectual
assent to these we need, but emotional love of them,
so that we cannot live without them. Not less of
intellect we want, but more of passion. And, for

my part, I think we want these ideas — ^such as the

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THE WEAL OF THE KITfGDOM

Fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man, self-
sacrifice the true life, the immortality of the personal
spirit in God's Fatherhood, the freedom of the soul,
and many others — to be embodied in a man, in his
life and death ; one of us, whom we may honour and
love as our leader. We need Jesus Christ, as St.
Paul needed Him. In Him the ideas, the causes are
held in a person worthy of them ; and in fighting
under His banner we fight for them ; we fight for
God the Father's character in the human race. If
you cannot, as yet, give Jesus Christ that love, you
can love the ideas He loved. At any rate, love
something ; love some truth as you love your sweet-
heart, ay, with a deeper love. When there is noble
love there never will be final failure. Love of a
truth of God in man — there, and there only, illusion
is not. Every effort of such love is certain of its
end in God and man.

These, then, are the things we learn about the
problem of failure, from the history of the idea of the
kingdom of God. To keep our noble hopes and
aims clear of the elements of the world ; clear of
self-seeking; clear of prejudice; clear of the con-
ventional ; in the universal ; to root our life in love,
and let nothing injure in us the power of loving.
But when God has enabled us to do that, and from
our point of vantage we look back on all the failures,

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THE GOSPEL OF JOlt

illusions, disappointments, and battles through which
we have passed to our conquest— do we learn
nothing from the retrospect ?

Many things, but two especially. First, that
truth only grows clear in this world through the
slow working-out of its inadequate or false forms ;
and the proof, through the failure of these forms, of
their unfitness or their falsehood. The truth itself
can only be completely known when all its false
forms are exhausted. It seems a clumsy arrange-
ment, but so it is ; and we must make the best of it.
When we complain of it, and are angry, we get
hopelessly wrong in life. When we accept it and
trust His goodness who has made it so, our cha-
racter betters, our life blesses others, and we die with
the sense of victory. But whatever we think about
it, the thing itself is true, and it is well to know
it. We see it working on a large scale in the
history of the world. The great conceptions, the
great truths which the East, Israel, Greece, Rome,
France, England, Germany, Italy, have wrought out
for the world have each gone, like the idea of the
kingdom of God among the Jews, through a number
of untrue or inadequate representations of them, over
which incessant battle has been waged, until the
false in them was eliminated and the true remained.

We may look round the world now and see the

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THE IDEAL OF THE KINGDOM

same thing going on. The ideas which, accumulat-
ing for some centuries under the surface of society,
appeared a hundred years ago in France, for a time
clearly, and then slipped into false and terrible
forms — have ever since been passing through a
series of inadequate forms, in which the untrue is
being slowly exhausted, towards their fit and perfect
form. Nearly every great conception in the realm of
science is doing the same. And when we look into
our own personal lives we are conscious of a similar
law at work. We have given form after form to our
main thoughts, to our aspiration after an ideal
character. We have worked through these forms,
proved the inadequacy and wrongness of the greater
part of their elements, and come out on the other
side of them. We call these struggles failures.
They are in reality steps towards the true ideal —
towards the actual truth. A few elements among
many wrong ones we have recognised as true. We
have kept these. That is not failure, but a partial
success. The other elements we have rejected ;
proved them to be false. They are exhausted for
us ; we shall never be troubled by them again. So
far as they are concerned, our way to the perfect is
free. It is their failure, not ours ; and their failure
is our success. Therefore take courage and have
faith. Look to the end.

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THE GOSPEL OF JOY

In this way the working of the law brings about
the second thing we learn — " That slowly, in nations
and in men, in the whole of the human race, a
character is being formed." Led on by illusions,
quickened by ideas, hurried forward by passionate
emotions, checked and forced to retreat by equally
passionate though opposite emotions, depressed by
failure^ till the cause of failures is found and the
strength which is evolved in the search for their
cause is secured, taught alike by being at the top of
success and at the bottom of ruin, but always rising
again out of the pit as long as there is any righte-
ousness or love in us — nations and men and women
are moulded by God, and mould themselves, into
distinct and vigorous personality ; that is, they win
a will with a clear aim, a veteran character which
distinguishes them, nation from nation, individual
from individual, until at last, in the nation and in
the person and in humanity, hereafter, if not here,
a vivid, clear, powerful, individual force, having its
own work to do, emerges into the universe, knows
its work, and does it with joy.

Then, when one of us, or a nation, or in the end
the whole body of humanity, realises at last living
Being in its fulness, and is thrilled with the rapture
of easy and powerful creation — what shall we, or
the nation, or humanity at large, care for the troubles,

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THE IDEAL OF THE KINGDOM

failures or battles that have preceded the attain-
ment ? Every memory of them will be drowned in
the glory of having arrived at perfect Being ; or, if
we remember them, we shall only remember not
their pain but the stern pleasure we had in their
conquest. By their means, or rather through their
strait and rocky gates, we have gained actual,
clear, and noble character ; vivid Being in love ; the
immortal power of making, as we move, what is
beautiful and good ; creative power and its delight-
fulness. This is worth every trouble that has led to
it, every failure that exhausted one of its obstacles.
This is the great, the foremost thing.

Have faith in that. We have reasons enough for
despondency. Life has its dark depressions, work
its own despairs ; efforts seem useless, and the gloom
within is sometimes deeper than the gloom without.
Then recall who you are — sons and daughters of the
Lord God Almighty, of the Eternal Goodness and
the Eternal Love who has sworn by Himself that
He will see us through our battles into union with
His love. And, seeing the Invisible, you will
conquer the visible. Believe in the very teeth of un-
belief. That is the patience of the saints. These
are the two great things we learn. To what, now,
do they point ? They point to a mighty Will outside
humanity, and yet within it, who has a purpose to

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

fulfil, and that purpose the perfection of man in
union with Himself. They point to God as Father
and Educator of the race, and they point to our
immortality in Him.

On the theory that there is no such will and
power without us, no purpose whatever in this long
history — how is the history of this huge, slow-
marching Evolution of Humanity to be explained ?
This slow development of truth through failure — of
that, what explanation is there in the doctrine that
the whole race becomes in the end corrupted dust,
and all the truth wrought out dies in the silence and
the inactivity of a dead universe ? Is the doctrine
that all the movement we see is, at its beginning,
chance, and has no clear end of noble life in view —
any rational explanation of a course of things which
is certainly accompanied by growth, and which seems
to have purpose stamped upon it ? And is it any
explanation of the slow clearing of truth that there
should be no absolute truth at all beyond our errors ;
no Will towards truth, who is eternal and powerful
enough to take us up into Himself and make us
satisfied with truth for ever?

And that slow formation of character, of a power-
ful, distinct personality in men and nations, is it
really explained by the doctrine that the character

and the personality came together by a purposeless

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series of antecedents, undirected by any will, any in-
telligence, any moral aim, and are doomed to result in
Nothingness ? Or, that they exist at the most for the
purpose of enabling future nations and individuals to
have characters and personalities of a higher quality,
which, however higher, shall perish in their turn, as all
at the last shall do ? Is there anyone conscious of a
distinct being, who is seriously satisfied with such a
statement of the cause and result of his being ? Ought
they not to look forward to further development ?

There is development. That we know. Does it
abruptly cease for no reason whatever ? I do not
say that the looking forward, and the hopes, are any
proof that the development will be ; but I say that
we do gain distinct being and its force, and with it
its hopes ; and that this gain, and the conceptions
and actions which arise from it, are facts which need
explanation ; and that the theory which says that
these gains and their results are only for the purpose
that others may gain more of them and in a higher
fashion ; and then that all, with all the gains, are to
go out like a burnt candle ; and, to make it more
futile, when they have reached their highest point of
development — is no explanation of the facts at all,
and would, if the matters which are considered were
physical, be rejected by a scientific philosopher as a
wholly inadequate theory.

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As to the half-formed characters either of nations
or men — those conscious that they are only half-
formed, who feel the bitterness of this, do they, when
they care most for the ideal aims, for the perfection
which they have not realised — do they believe that
the theory which predicts their annihilation explains
the facts of their case ? Why, it wholly passes them
by. It coolly, cynically abandons them. They are
only the steps on which the higher characters
advance ; and they are kicked away. All these poor
souls, fully half if not more of the human race, are
absolutely lost to make a grain of gain for the
selected folk. This is the hell of these theorists,
and it is even more degrading than the hell of the
orthodox. Moreover, all the selected themselves
perish in the end, dying like fools, if they have lived
like wise men. The whole race, even when perfected,
blows out into the universe in a pufF of vapour.
If ever there was a theory which was stamped with
want of intellect, this is that theory.

No, half things naturally suggest to the reason
wholes which are to be. Things in us which are
unfinished mean to the reason, judging from ex-
perience, finish to come. Beginnings of good things
mean, for we know by experience that good grows,
endings in higher good. The consciousness of
having begun, and of having been developed up

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THE IDEAL OF THE KINGDOM

to a certain point in moral, spiritual, and imagina-
tive force, carries with it a just hope, and finally a
conviction of further development; and that con-
viction can only be fulfilled if immortality and the
love of God be true.

And now, what these persons feel mankind feels
as a whole. There ascends from all the ages
to the heavens, a vast, incessant, uttered, and
unuttered cry for the whole — humanity groaning
and travailing for fulness of life, to find itself equal
to its own conception of itself; nay, to have the
glory and the finish which it can only dream. This,
which is historical fact, is not explained by the
theories which leave mankind witliout a God, and
man without immortal continuance. They shut
their eyes to it because it contradicts them. But we
say that it means a purpose in the universe, and the
purpose means a Will beyond ourselves, which Will,
if it be good, will determine the satisfaction of man's
desires for completion and perfection. Man will
know then the advances he made by failures, the
successes hidden in his mistakes, the force and
joyfulness which crown his faithful struggle. And
that theory gives, at least, an adequate reason for
the facts that we observe in history and in ourselves.
It explains the unsatisfaction of humanity.

And finally, as to truth, the same inference holds

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THE GOSPEL OF JOY

good. Nothing explains man's passion for it but its
absolute existence beyond us in One who is the
very Truth, and whose will is that it should be
possessed, at last, by man in all its fulness. And if
there be such a Truth, and we are from Him, and
He is good — then it is impossible that He should
answer the long, collective, and individual effort of
the whole human race after truth by a grim mockery,
** Go, you have struggled long, wept and suffered
long, desired with inextinguishable passion the very
truth. Take now your reward ; pass into Nothing-
ness ; you shall never have truth." If He could do
that, God would be worse than the worst of us.
But He is not that. He is immortal love and justice.
He will love us and do us justice. He is full of
sorrow for us. Like as a father pitieth his own
children even so God pities our long trouble ; and
gives us, when we are worthy of it and able to use
it, the whole truth at last. We grasp it with un-
speakable joy; it satisfies us to the core of our
being, and the joy of it is itself Immortal Life, and
the Life is ever-acting Love. "Now we know in
part, but then we shall know as we are known."

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THE AIMS OF THE KINGDOM

OF GOD

The night is far spent, the day is at hand.

Romans xiii. 12

THE time has past by in which we can talk of
the years in which we live as years of transi-
tion in religion, except in the wide sense that ideas
and their forms are always moving onwards. We
are on the verge of a new world of thought and
feeling in almost every sphere of human endeavour.
That new world has not as yet, especially in religion
and social philosophy, taken its clear shape ; but at
any moment, on the lips of some man of genius, it
may begin to know itself, and to know its aims,
and then to run swiftly forward on its path. Art
is at that point, so is creative literature ; so are
social and political questions, science and criticism ;
and so, above all, are religion and the science of
religion. These, with their changes during the last
thirty years, and their present position, would form,
each of them, an interesting subject for a lecture ;

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THE GOSPEL OF JOY

but in this place, our business is a sermon ; and I
shall confine myself to the existing state of Chris-
tianity, of what Jesus called the kingdom of God ;
and to the aims we should place before us as we
look forwards to its new development.

Christianity has, generation after generation, with
all the prolific power which belongs to a. vital root,
taken new shapes in the minds of men. The main
forms it has taken during the last sixty years, and
especially during the last thirty, are now exhausted
of the good they contained. What harvest they had
— ^and it was a very fair harvest — has been gathered
in for the use of men, and the field is now in
stubble; nay rather, it has been ploughed and
sown, and we wait for the new earing. The
nonsense that is talked about Christianity being
dead arises from those who mistake the decay of
old intellectual forms of it for the death of the living
thing itself. We are at that point of one of those
cycles of life in which the eagle is dying, but from
the egg it leaves behind a new eagle will be born.
As to those who say " Kill Christianity," you may
as well try to kill Science as Christianity. A living
spirit which lives by love in man can no more perish
than love itself can perish. All decay in it only pro-
duces fresher Ufe. ** Still more labyrinthine buds its

rose." We stand upon the verge of this new life,

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THE AIMS OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD

and the main thing we have to do is to be alert and
ready, accinct for the race, looking out for the call of
God and for the fresher light of His countenance ;
as quick to follow a true leader as we should be to
lead, if such a duty were laid upon us; caring
nothing for our own repute, but only for the victory
of right and love and truth ; and rejoicing if we are
counted worthy of fighting the good fight of faith.
I have myself lived through the birth, the growth,
and now through the decay of a world of thought
about Christianity which once was new, but now is
changing. I am ready to welcome the change with
joy. And I bid you who are young to welcome it
with a greater joy than mine. For a full life is
before you. A new world is opening — its dawn is
already in the sky; the leaves are beginning to
shoot upon the trees of this fresh springtide. For
you, alive and keen, it ought to be a time of joy and
impulse. Ought you not to feel inspired just
because you are born into days of movement and
of difficulty ? To be young, and indifferent — that
were a shame. See that you are worthy of the
gladness of the spring.

It is well, then, to know, and realise the elements
of the new world at hand. One of those elements
is the attempt, nay, the determination, to create a
new society, and to get rid of the root-evils of the

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old. That will be one of the great campaigns of

the next thirty years. Around it gathers, as you

must have felt, the main enthusiasm of those who

love men, the nobler passions of men and women

who believe in their oneness with humanity, and

their childhood to God the Father. Its eagerness

and its aims are not confined to one nation. It is

among progressive peoples a universal movement.

Its keenness and excitement are astonishing, its

march rapid, its hopes and faith ideal, and its

methods practical, even scientific. It is this union

of the imaginative and the scientific which gives it a

force which will overbear resistance. Nor does it

belong to any one special class. Of course, the

poorer classes who have suffered the most feel its

hopes most keenly, but a great and increasing mass

of persons in the comfortable classes are eagerly

touched by its spirit, and are ready, in the emotion

of it, to make large sacrifices for it. And, indeed,

in its largest aim, it desires not only to regenerate

the position of the poor, but just as much to

regenerate the spirit of all classes, and especially of

those who are called the upper classes of society.

Its chief aim is justice all round, and in the hearts

of those who pursue that aim the hope abides that

Love, in all the forms St. Paul gives it in his noble

Psalm of Charity, should do the work hand-in-hand

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THE AIMS OF THE KINGDOM OP GOD

with justice. Moreover, a new element pervades it,
or, at least, pervades the best of those who aspire to
it — the element of gentleness. Science has taught
it that its advance must be slow ; historical ex-
perience has taught it that the use of force to attain
its ends cuts its throat, or brings back swiftly all the
evils it strives to overthrow ; and both science and
historical experience are at this point in harmony
with the spirit of Christianity. There is more hope
of its success than ever there was before, and the
hope has increased at every point the youthful life,
the animation as of birds in spring, which fills the
movement. It is like that which was said by the
prophet Joel, " And it shall come to pass afterward,
that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and
your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old
men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall
see visions ; and also upon the servants and upon the
handmaids in those days will I pour out my Spirit."
Can any words be closer to that new life, fresh
hopes, and enkindled aims which now are filling the
world, and of which the multitude of Utopias which
are published is but one of the symptoms ?

Into this great movement we shall come ; none of
us will be able to stand apart from it. It has a
hundred forms, and is quite as quick and powerful
in art and literature and law as it is in politics and

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sociology. It has seized also on religion— on Chris-
tianity, to which it has the closest relation. How
shall we bear ourselves within it ?

Well, first, we should welcome it with joy. It
has an ideal aim such as a Christian ought to have.
It desires a new heaven and a new earth wherein
dwelleth righteousness. Unrighteous methods are
put forward for its realisation by some who hate the
ideal element in it, and desire only the material.
Part of our work is to maintain it within the limits
of strict righteousness ; having faith that righteous-
ness is at the root of the law of universal develop-
ment, and that to violate that fundamental power is
to lose all force. To do that duty in this struggle is
to fight the good fight of faith.

Again, the movement will produce itself before
us in two shapes. One will say, " Better men's
circumstances, and a new spirit will begin to influ-
ence and better their lives." Another will say,
" Awaken in men a new and nobler spirit, train their
soul, and then their circumstances will improve."
Both these statements are true when they are taken
together. To maintain one against the other is to
maintain one half of a truth against the other half of
it. No man who, being a Christian, desires the
kingdom of God, can justly neglect giving his energy
to the bettering of the social, physical, and educa-

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THE AIMS OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD

tional condition of the poor, the diseased and the
criminal classes. But he is not a Christian, or he has
not realised the problem fully, if that is all he does.
Social improvement is a work portions of which any
one can do, in which all ought to share ; but if we
who follow Christ desire to do the best work in that
improvement, and in the best way, we ought to strive
— while we join in the universal movement towards
a juster society — to give a spiritual life to that move-
ment ; to keep it at an ideal level ; to free it from
mere materialism ; to maintain in it the monarchy of
self-sacrifice; to fix its eyes on invisible and un-
worldly truths ; to supply it with noble and spiritual
faiths ; to base all associations of men on the ground
of their spiritual union — ^all being children of God,
and brothers of one another, in the love and faith
by which Jesus lived ; and to maintain the dignity
of this spiritual communion of men in faith in their
immortal union with God. This is the fight of faith
we, as fellow-workers with God, shall have to wage ;
and this not only binds us up with the poor, but
with the rich, not only with the ignorant but the
learned ; for on these grounds all men are seen as
stripped of everything save of their humanity and
their divine kinship. Nay, at the very end, as one
argues back to a simpler and simpler expression,
nothing remains but God in Man and Man in God ;

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The cosp^l op fo^

that central truth which, as long as it was conceived
to be formalised in Jesus Christ alone, was of as
limited a use to men, and of as limited a power over
them, as it will be of illimitable use and power when
it is conceived as the mother and universal truth —
the truth that God and all the spirits which have
flowed from Him are for ever one. To support this
inwoven life of the divine and the human is, above
all things else, our duty and work. This is the goal
which, in every class, we are called upon to reach, to
secure, and to enjoy. Improve, then, the material
condition and the knowledge of all who are strug-
gling for justice ; it is part of your life which if you
neglect, you are out of touch with the new life ; but
kindle in it, uphold and sanctify in it, the life which
is divine, the communion with man of God, without
union with whose character all effort for social
improvement will revert to new miseries and new
despair. So far for that matter.

The next thing to speak of is a tendency in the
world which is the very opposite of that of which
we have spoken, but which is equally characteristic
of a time when a new life and spirit is on the verge
of taking its form. As part of the fight of faith is
to support and direct the first, so part of that battle
is to weaken and oppose the doctrine that the world

is going from bad to worse, that there is no regene-

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THE AIMS OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD

ration for it, and that there ought to be none. On

this doctrine I have frequently spoken, but I do not

hesitate to speak of it again. It is the fashion to

praise it; it deserves no praise, it is detestable.

This is a favourite doctrine of the comfortable classes

who are idle and luxurious or merely fantastic, and

of a certain type of scientific men, both of whom are

profoundly ignorant of the working world and of the

poor who hate this doctrine and despise it. The

sufferings of the poor and the oppressed are used as

an argument in its favour, but, curiously enough,

you scarcely ever find it held by the poor and the

oppressed ; — on the contrary, these are the creators

and builders of Utopias ; out of this class grow those

who prophesy a golden year. Those who have most

reason to despair never despair.

But this philosophy of the worst belongs to those

who suffer only from their extravagance and luxury

and idleness, or from a philosophic retirement from

the battle of mankind, or from a culture over-refined

into a hysteria which believes itself genius, or

from the disease of materialism, or, as in the

Universities, from youthful playing with these

theories as toys of the mind. It is a doctrine which

naturally appears when a new life is at hand, for it

is the wailing of the old life which is dying, the

moaning of its disease ; and is as characteristic of

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THE GOSPEL OF JOY

such decay as the previous doctrine I have described
is characteristic of the labour-pains of the coming
life. Its chief home among the exhausted classes is
with those bitten to death with luxury and idleness,
men and women worn out with pleasure ; with those
who only believe in natural laws and who recognise
nothing beyond the sway of intellectual analysis ;
with the small poets and artists who voice and paint
the sensual, the ugly and the base in human nature.
What else can they represent, for they see nothing
else ; blind to the enchanted dawn, to the uprising
spring ; and detesting the naturalness, the rudeness,
and the simplicity of the new conceptions. Thus it
was when the Book of Ecclesiastes was written;
thus in the Roman Empire when Jesus came, thus
before the French Revolution. Thus it is among a
certain class at present ; and one of its most marked
characteristics is the contempt of those who hold it
for those who do not go with them — a contempt
which proves their incapacity to act, and the dotage
of their thought. However, we need not be too
angry with them. The new Hfe rises as the old
decays. Daniel and the book of Enoch, both enthu-
siastic prophecies of a new heaven and earth, were
written side by side with Ecclesiastes ; the wail of
Rome*s decay was met by the joy of Christianity.

The cynicism of France before the Revolution was

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THE AIMS OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD

overwhelmed by thousands of books and pamphlets
full of prophecy. These creatures who preach death
are only born to perish.

Moreover, the Goths are coming on them, and
we need the Goths, if Philosophy, Art, Literature,
or Religion are to continue. Pessimism ends by
slaughtering those noble things, for it imprisons
thought and effort ; it puts a stop to all work to re-
deem the weak and criminal world ; it mocks at, and
degrades love.

Nevertheless, a degrading doctrine like that is
best met, not by incessant attack of it, but by build-
ing up living interests which will kindle men ; by
awaking noble passions among men ; by glorifying
by our life and work the world-wide duties and the
great aspirations of mankind ; by forming in thought
and shaping by imagination vital and beautiful ideals,
and by sacrificing our lives, in a pure, clear flame,
upon their altars ; by expanding and developing the
aims and the work of humanity, and by believing in
God, the Father of men, and living like His children.
Faith in man and faith in God ; faith in the glorious
end to which the vast struggle of the Titan works ;
faith in the victory in which it is to close, will enable
you to fight the good fight against the doctrine of
those poor and diseased folk, who maintain, at the
very moment when the bright child of a new age is

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THE GOSPEL OF JOY

about to be born, that universal death is the most
fitting end of the evolution of man. I welcome you
to this battle. Fight it well, with the sword of the
Spirit, with the shield of Faith upon your breast, and
the joyful Hope of salvation shining on your head.

This is the main statement of the battle to which
we are called, and of the conditions under which it
will be waged, reduced to their simplest expression,
or to one of their simplest expressions. I should
like to hang on to it two codicils, if I may be allowed
to use that term, one with regard to knowledge and
another with regard to beauty.

Knowledge is necessary for the faith you have to
defend ; the faith in God and Man. The best know-
ledge is one which, if you are human persons, you
will gain day by day — the knowledge of the human
heart — and there is only one way of gaining it, and
that is by loving men and women well. The labour
for that knowledge is long and difficult to bring into
working order ; and we must keep it as our fore-
most object Above all, we must take care lest the
winning of other knowledge hide from us, or prevent
us from striving after, this knowledge, the most
importailt we can secure.

But that is not what we generally understand by
knowledge. To winning all that we ought to know

of what others have thought and done, we devote a

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THJ£ Aims OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD

good part of our lives, and no better work could be
done. It is absolutely necessary. But the question
then is — ^What are we doing with it ; what are we
going to do with it ? The reply may be put briefly.
There are two ways in which we may chiefly use
knowledge. The first is for criticism, and it has its
use and excellence. But the over-development of it
at the present day is a mark of that decay of life
•which belongs to a part of our society. It goes
along with an exhausted world. Use knowledge
then for criticism, but not altogether; nor even
chiefly. Too much use of it, for that purpose, leads
to pride and vanity ; and in the end, to the decay of
intelligence and the uses of intelligence.

The true use of knowledge, and that use of it
which belongs to a living and larger world, such as
is now on the point of birth, is for creation. Our
main work is to shape our knowledge within our-
selves into new and vital forms ; and then issue it,
new-minted, for the use and joy of men ; suffused
with spiritual thought, bright with imagination,
and aflame with those new interests which kindle
men into a fresher life. Leave, for the most part,
criticism alone, and give yourself to some creation ;
that is, to the shaping into some clear form, with an
individual touch in it, of whatever you have grasped,
understood, thought or felt. That will awaken and

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interest your soul and awaken and interest the
world of men* For, just as criticism alone ministers
to pride and then to death, so creation, even of the
smallest kind, ministers to humility. And that
stands to reason : the slightest act of shaping in-
stantly opens before you an ever-expanding sea,
and the vision of the infinite is the death of vanity
and pride. But to create anything ministers also
to life. To make a new and individual thing kindles
the sense of life and awakes the desire of it in
others. And when we do that, we belong to the new
period of life and thought and feeling, which is being
even now born into the world. It is life, not death the
world wants to enable it to spring out of its shadows.
And criticism, analysis, science do not give that.
The true use of knowledge is to supply means for
creation ; and when creativeness is gained, then its
use for criticism comes in, but not till then wisely.

Secondly, whatever, out of your knowledge, you
create, shape as beautifully as you can. Give it
charm, that quality which will make men desire it
and follow after it with love. More than half your
true success — by which I mean your influence on
mankind for its good and progress — will depend on
that.

Beauty is far too much neglected. It never
belongs to criticism ; it ought by right to be always

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bound up with creation. What it is, is hard to
define ; but, whenever anything in nature or in the
thoughts and doings of man awakens a noble desire
of seeing more of it ; kindles pure love of it ; seems
to open out before us an infinite of it which allures
us into an endless pursuit ; stimulates reverence,
and makes the heart leap with joy — ^there is beauty,
and with it always is imagination, the shaping power.
The capacity for seeing beauty with the heart is
one of the first necessities for such a life in a living
world as I now urge upon you. When you see it, you
always see more and more of it. And the more you
see it, the more love and reverence you will feel in
your heart ; and the less you will care to criticise, and
the more you will care to create. The world needs
it now, and the glory of it, more almost than any-
thing else, for nearly all the world has lost the power
of seeing it. The monied men want it ; the scientific
men want it ; the artists themselves have of late
betrayed it ; the business men want it. The middle
class and the aristocracy are almost destitute of it ;
the working men abide in conditions in which its
outward forms are absent. To give them the power
to see all that is lovely in nature, in human thought,
in art, and in the noble acts of men — that is a great
part of your work, and you should realise it and
shape it day by day.

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Lastly, we are now part of a world which, having
exhausted one form of Christianity, and not having
as yet shaped another fitted for a new age, is full of
active unbelief or inactive carelessness concerning
the things which belong to the spiritual life. When
the understanding, the analysing intellect, is made,
not what it is — an excellent servant in the house
of life — but the master of life; when the purse
and its children, display and luxury and greed of
more, are the lords of action, and of what is called
thought in society — then the imagination, the desire
of the infinite, the noble imperatives of eternal
righteousness and love, the impelling emotions of
the invisible truths of the spirit are kept in
prison. Therefore, lay hold of eternal life ; on
the life which lives on earth for the love of
God the Father, for the following and the faith of
Jesus, for those truths which are invisible, im-
material, and eternal ; the support and pursuit of
which are worth all the wealth and honour, rank
and knowledge of the earth. Lay hold on these,
not only as belonging to the life you live for the sake
of your fellow-men, but as belonging also to a life
to come, in which you and your brothers on earth
shall partake of God for ever.

It is not much use to argue with, or to attack
those who live for the things of this world alone.

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You will not do much good in that way, but only
make a fruitless noise which will set the world more
closely to its own pursuits. But you will do good,
and fight the good fight of faith, by a personal grasp
of this spiritual life ; by so deep a conviction of it
that your whole life will be its witness ; by so great
a love of it that all men will feel that this life is the
first to you, and inconceivably dear to you — so dear
that you can no more join in the view which says
" all the world is bad " than you can help joining in
the new life, which declares that "the world is
passing on to a new and nobler being." Then when
that belief is yours, it is so uplifting that all your
knowledge wiU become creative, and all your creation
beautiful. That is the deepest foundation of the
Christian life in the world, now, and for the future.
It rests on the faith of Jesus, that God is in this
world, the Father of every man, the Spirit who
moves them onward into perfection, stage after stage,
revelation after revelation. And that is the very life
and voice of a Christian's prophesying. Prophesy
it with courage, with faith, with joyful hope, and
imaginative joy, before the old and decaying world,
that it may forget its exhaustion, and die that it
may live. Prophesy it within the new and up-
springing life of the world, that it may fulfil the
nobler society to which it now aspires.

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WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY, THE
KINGDOM OF GOD?

Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of
eternal life.

St. John vL 68

IT may well be asked, in these times of change,
when men, in matters of religion, change for
the most part towards loss of the religious ideas
and call it progress, whether we have changed in
that fashion, and let slip down the wind the great
conceptions on which the religion of Christ stands
fast and immutable amid the tumbling waves.
And I have asked myself that question, and we may
all ask ourselves the same. Have we changed the
ground of our faith? Is what was dear to us
ten years ago dear to us to-day? What we
believed to be true ten years ago, do we believe to
be true to-day ? For my part I have found nothing
more excellent than the teaching of Jesus Christ,
and I see nothing which even approaches it in
excellence.

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THE GOSPEL OF JOY

I trust that it may be the same with you. Many
new religions, many new foundations of thought,
are offered to us on which to build our life. The
teaching of Christ is put aside by many; it is
thought by others to have some weight, but that its
excellence has been exaggerated. There are some
even who cry it down.

But it will outlast all its enemies, and it remains
greater than all the religions and ethical theories
which have endeavoured to replace it. Only it is
well in these times of confusion to understand clearly
what it is, what are its fundamental ideas ; to clear
it from its excrescences ; to say that many things
said to belong to it do not belong to it at all. By
itself, it is of the greatest simplicity, beauty, and
eternity. And it is so because it rests on Love,
that is, it rests on God, who, if He were not Love,
would have no real existence at all. What it is
I will declare to-day — the everlasting Gospel to the
human race.

When I say it is simple, I mean that it is not
involved with all the doctrinal schemes which men,
partly for the sake of retaining a tyrannical authority
over the souls of their fellows, and partly in order
to make Christianity subservient to the logical
understanding, have built up around it. All these
schemes, such as are contained in the Nicene Creed,

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WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY, THE KINGDOM OF GOD?

in the sacerdotal theories of the Roman Church, in
the " Confessions " of the various sects, are intellec-
tual, not spiritual arrangements, are necessarily
transient, belonging to the world, and have nothing
to do with the plain spiritual and eternal ideas
which Jesus declared. They are not to be found in
a single thing He said. They arose after His death :
they are the product of blind logic, not of the seeing
spirit; of limited thought, not of infinite feeling. They
are the poor prose of the transient ecclesiastic, not
the noble poetry of the Eternal Father — and without
rejecting the use of them altogether, whenever they
do not militate against the love of God and man
(for that is the test of their use), we say that they
are of no vital or absolute importance at all, and
have nothing to do with eternal life. They are of
the temporary, unspiritual world, the world of the
limited intellect — and the fashion of that world
passeth away. Clear your mind of them ; live
within on a higher plane than that on which they
move. Your religion is to dwell in the Love of the
Father whose children you are, not in that conten-
tious argument of men upon doctrines of religion
which does away with the Fatherhood of God and
the Brotherhood of man.

And, indeed, the first and foremost truth which
Christ taught was that we are not alone in this

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THE GOSPEL OF JOY

sorrowful world ; but that, beyond all its sorrows,
we are in the closest possible relation to Him who
made the world of men, and in whom its sorrows are
contained. Why sorrows and sins prevail on earth,
we can but dimly see, but in spite of them, Jesus —
and surely few have suffered more than He — believed
and maintained that God bore to us the personal
relation of a Father, and that we were His dear
children whom He loved. ** There," He thought, " is
the healing of the world, the medicine for sin and
sorrow." Indeed, to believe this is to bring right-
eousness into life and joy into pain.

When we know that we love God and that God
loves us, we are healed of the grievous wounds of
life. In the infinite flood of divine and human love
our sins and sorrows are drowned, and the ark of joy
and peace alone survives. To have the heart full
of love, and to feel that we are infinitely loved, is so
divine a passion that it lifts us into a world where
we forget our pains and wrong. We feel our pains
and sins, but even when we feel them, and many
are our days of depression, we feel them only for a
time. We know they will come to an end, and all
the arguments based on them against the goodness
and love of God drift away like feeble clouds before
the summer wind. The soul is at peace, though life

be shipwrecked in the storm. We know, though we

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WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY, THE KINGDOM OF GOD?

have been battered by sin, that through love of Love
we are becoming righteous. We know, though
sorrows are deep, that out of hunger for righteous-
ness we are attaining joy. We understand, though
we are left as lonely often as a mountain peak, that
we are not alone, for the Father is with us.

This is the first truth as it is in Jesus. We are
of kin to God ; one with Him for ever ; children who
are loved by Him, and who will, as the ages pass
by, come to love Him as He loves us. That divine
and glorious end of universal love — all the children
brought to love their Father, the Father living in
the heart of every child — that is the '* far-oflF divine
event to which the whole creation moves."

Children, even the worst, are not abandoned
by a good father upon earth. Much more they
are not abandoned by their Father in heaven, in
whom goodness is deeper than the ocean of space I
But He does not make them good by force, by
miraculous command. He sets us to work out our
salvation, with His help, as true men win their
liberty — by their own struggle. We must conquer
goodness at the point of the sword. Through
mighty effort against wrong, through free choice of
good, through troubles and endurance, even through
depths of wrong, God leads His children at last to
realise their true being and to know Him as theirs

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THE GOSPEL OF JOY

for ever. That was the belief and the Gospel of
Christ; and its proclamation — ^that God was the
Lover of all, a universal Father — made a new world.
Had it been held by all, we should be now a
thousand years in advance of what we are. But the
theologians and the doctrine-mongers limited God's
Fatherhood ; made it true only on conditions which
they themselves, for the sake of keeping their power,
imposed on men. It is on the shoulders of those
among them who limited the illimitable love of Christ,
that the crime lies of destroying the progress of the
world, of injuring the whole body of humanity, of
degrading Christ, of making men into haters of God
and deniers of love.

It seems of late, and here especially in England,
that these limits put to the universal love of God are
less insisted on ; that excluding others from God's
love is less thought to be the special mark of Chris-
tians ; that we are finding a common ground of faith
and conduct in the recognition of the unconditional
love of God — and for this belated return to the
good news of Christ, I thank God and take courage.
At any rate, let us, who have found the faith that
God holds all in His love, cling to it, teach it by
our life, and proclaim it night and day. It is the
highest of truths; and when we have found the
highest, our business is to live it ; and to love it

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WHAT IS CHRISTJANITYy THE KINGDOM OF GOD ?

with all our heart and soul and mind and strength ;
and not to love ourselves. That was the first idea
of Jesus.

The second declaration Christ made followed on
the first. It was the declaration of the Forgiveness
of Sins. That God was perfectly good was part of
Christ's thought ; but as He looked round on man,
He saw that man had greatly given himself over to
evil. If men were then to know that God was their
Father, they would have to give up sin and take
to goodness. Therefore Christ's teaching said — If
men will only love God, only obey the call of God's
spirit in them, they will have power to leave off sin
and to do righteousness. Perfect goodness loves
you ; love Him a little in return, and do His will.
And then, living in His will with love, you must cease
to sin ; and when you cease to sin because you
love goodness, your sins are forgiven ; they are re-
membered no more. To be sure, we shall suffer,
but what of that ? The pain of natural punishment
is nothing when we are at home with God again.
If we are loved we can bear suffering with patience
and in hope.

The removal of the natural results of wrong-doing,
of what we call punishment, is not forgiveness.
Forgiveness is to feel at one with love, with our
Father's heart ; to feel like a child to God ; to feel

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THE GOSPEL OF JOY

the Strange delight that we are in union with God
and His righteousness, and to do what the feeling
urges ; to feel the emotion of joy in that urging us to
the act of good Yes, that is the Forgiveness of
Sins. A new life is open to us. We hear the voice
of Jesus : " Go, you will sin no more."

Of all the wants of the world, none were deeper
than this. No misery is greater than the conscious-
ness that having had a tendency to love and justice,
to purity and pity, to wisdom and temperance, we
have become unjust, envious, full of hatred, disso-
lute, fond of the baseness of the flesh, cruel, living
in folly and shame, intemperate in selfish desire,
tyrannised over by self; and, living with these com-
panions, restless and unsatisfied, self-horrified, in-
wardly ashamed. Men keep their unhappy hearts to
themselves, but that silent, bitter cry of unquiet
shame and fear, of longing for release, for peace and
goodness, rises like a vast cloud of sorrow toward
heaven from the universal heart of man. Ethics do
not cure that, nor science, nor philosophy, nor
humanitarianism : it is an inward matter of misery.
Religious discussions do not help it. It is no
remedy for that to be able to balance doctrine against
doctrine and to analyse by logic the schemes of the
Churches. It does not cure that to be a master-
critic, to apply science to the miracles, and the laws

346

WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY, THE KINGDOM OF GOD ?

of history to the Bible. The real matter is deep
within, beyond these transitory things. Knowledge,
the mind of man, can do nothing to help this sorrow
to a final cure.

But the spirit of Christ can. For nearly twenty
centuries, the words, the character, the life, the
teaching, and the death of Jesus, all they were, and
all they mean, have brought healing to this universal
misery of man. There are millions of lives to testify
to this being true. The lost have found themselves ;
the sinners have ceased to sin ; the miserable have
become happy ; the restless have reached peace ; the
dissolute have become pure; the malicious and
envious have learned to love ; the selfish have devoted
themselves to others ; the poor of soul have become
rich, the useless useful ; the fearful brave, and the
enslaved free. Where the secret lies we cannot
altogether know, but we shall know hereafter.
What we do know is the facts ; the results of the
teaching of Christ. Men are redeemed ; and beneath
every form of Christianity that is the permanent
thing. The dogmas do not count, the criticism, the
discussions are nothing : the healing power, the
forgiveness of sins — that is all. It is the power
within to lead a new life and to forget the burden of
the past — a mighty thing indeed 1 And the reason
of it all is contained in those words of Jesus, if we

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THE GOSPEL OF JOY

could but reach their infinite depth in thought.
" Her sins which are many are forgiven her, for she
loved much." That was the second declaration of
Jesus, and it followed from His doctrine of a Father
of men who, being good, loved them, and could not,
consistently with fatherhood, leave His children to
be mastered by evil. He was bound to make them,
in the end, holy with Himself.

But this inferred a third truth — ^the immortality of
the soul, of the conscious personality of the child of
God. The Father is immortal, therefore the child.
Goodness and Love— two names of the same thing
— ^are necessarily eternal. If the child is to reach
the goodness and love of the Father, he must be as
eternal as the Father. If all this trouble be taken
with the individual child, it is ridiculous to the
reason, and inconceivable to the heart, that the
Father should fling that which He laboured for and
loved into annihilation. If we allow that God is a
Father, that conclusion of death is unthinkable.
Then, also, thousands and thousands of persons in
our scrap of seventy years do not, and cannot, get rid
of their evil. What shall we say to that ? We say
that if the Fatherhood of God imply the redemption
of Man, as Christ maintained, then there must be
another life in which these wretched children are
redeemed. If Love is to be Lord of all, if it is Lord

WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY, THE KINGDOM OF GOD?

of all, we cannot be left to death or to evil. God
would, in doing so, violate His own nature, be false
to the very basis of His being. If there be a Father,
not one child loses his life for evermore.

Of course if there be no God, or if He be a tyrant,
these arguments fall through ; and the fact is, that
those who disbelieve immortality are driven to dis-
belief in God, or to disbelief in His being Love. But
Christ did not disbelieve in immortal life for man*
He said it inevitably followed on his faith in the
Fatherhood of God; and He proclaimed the immor-
tality of His brother men ; and indeed without it, all
His previous declarations would have been as snow
in the water. They would have died as they fell on
the heart of man.

These are the three great ideas that Christ pro-
claimed to the personal soul ; and in them, for our
individual lives, all Christianity is contained. The
first secures Love, with its universal power. The
second secures Conduct, the doing of righteousness,
with its universal use. The third secures Life,
with its universal joy, and the life will finally be at
one with Love and Righteousness. The three
truths mingle, like the three primary colours, into
absolute light. Of course, we can weave out of
them by intellectual analysis all kinds of doctrines,
forms and ceremonies; but these rise and pass

349

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

away, and they have no weight except for a time.
They are unnecessary in the eternal world of God ;
not one of them touches our salvation, that is, our
union with God ; they are human, not divine ; of the
Church and the sect, not of Christ. Of course, we
can make out of them all the motives and means for
the infinite variety of spiritual emotion in the various
souls of men ; in their art and literature and life ;
but these are but the playing of the waves in our
souls at the bidding of the winds of circumstance.
They ruffle the surface of the ocean. The deep
unfathomable ocean itself is the three great Christian
conceptions, the three great Christian truths — the
Fatherhood of God, the Forgiveness of Sins, the
Immortality of the Soul. These are Christianity,
and all the rest is either transient, or unnecessary.
These are the three that abide ; these are the most
excellent thoughts on which a man can anchor his
ship of life. These, as the world passes away and
the desire thereof, endure and shine like the eyes
of God Himself. Our business and our glory is to
live in them ; to abide in the abiding ; to cling to
the most excellent

This then is the teaching of Christ in relation
to the individual soul. But if that were all, more
than half of our deepest interests would be left
out. More than half of human life would be un-

350

WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY, THE KINGDOM OF GOD?

appealed to. The expansion of the soul in love
would not only be unsecured, it would also be
injured. If that were the whole of religion, it
might end in fixing our thoughts only on ourselves ;
and end, through engendering selfishness, in the
death of religion.

Folk have made this personal religion all; but
that was not the way of Christ. He secured a
personal religion by bringing each of us into the
closest contact with our Father, but He swept us
far beyond that individual relation. His whole life
and His death maintained that we were to pass
beyond ourselves into union with mankind, and that
only in sacrifice of self for those not ourselves,
could we win our true life. He that loveth his life
shall lose it, he that loseth his life the same shall
find it. Die for men ; die for the truths that bless
and redeem men ; die for the love of your brethren,
if you would live. Death of self for love's sake is
life eternal.

Thus He bound up personal with collective
religion, the individual soul with the soul of mankind;
the love of God with the love of man ; the particular
with the universal. In His relation to God within
His own soul, Jesus stood alone with God, and His
individuality was preserved. In our separate rela-
tion to God, each in bis own soul, our individuality

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THE GOSPEL OF JOY

is also secured for ever. But in the relation of Jesus
to God as the Father of mankind, He stood, not alone
as an individual, but as a vital partof an innumerable
company of His fellows, for whom He was bound,
as the first of practical duties, to live and die with
love and joy ; and in that relation His spiritual col-
lectivism was secured. In our relation to Grod as
the Father of mankind, we are brothers of all men,
bound to live for them in self-sacrificing love ; and
in that relation our spiritual collectivism is secured.
Nor was this apart from Christ's first doctrine of the
Fatherhood of God, into which single truth all other
truths run up, and in which they are implicitly con-
tained. For if men are by right of their created
humanity children of one Father, then the necessary
conclusion is that they are brothers one of another,
and woven into one whole in a fraternity of love.

Of all the doctrines of Christ this has been the
most violated, the most disbelieved in practice, the
most difHcult to realise ; and, alas ! some of the worst
violators of it have been those who claimed the
religion of Jesus as their special possession. Till it
is better understood, till it is made the absolute rule,
till the Christian Churches and sects make any
doctrine or practice that violates or limits the loftiest
conception of human and divine love, a lie to believe
and a villany to do, Christ is not fully believed in, is

352

WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY, THE KINGDOM OF GOD?

unequally known, and the progress of mankind into

union with one another and the Father delayed and

injured. It is towards the brotherhood in God that

mankind is blindly struggling; and it is a woeful

thing to find those who call themselves Christians

proclaiming by their excluding doctrines and their

intolerant practice that they have nothing to do

with that brotherhood of man which is founded on

the Fatherhood of God, and which was so central
I

a doctrine of Christ that He died on the cross to
secure it, after He had liv^d a life to practise it, and
to preach it.

Here, however, it is, and it is the leading idea of
the whole world ; of all association, of all human
fraternities, of all noble equality, of all progress*
Let men be bound in infinite love to one another
as brothers, because they are the children of God,
who will redeem them from evil into immortal
union with Himself. That is the thought of Christ,
and I defy the whole world to formulate one more
noble, more beautiful, and more excellent.

Children of God, Brothers one of another, re-
deemed from all evil, immortal in love, these are
the ideas of Christ for the human race. This is
Christianity, and the application of these ideas to
mankind is as universal, as unconditional with regard
to redemption, as infinite in duration, as is the

353 2

THE GOSPEL OF JOV

nature of the universal, unconditioned, infinite
Being, from whom they came into the mind of man.
We should be fools and blind, if having understood
them, we accepted as the foundation of life any
ideas less splendid, less all-embracing, less close
to the human heart, less rooted and grounded in
love.

Men have offered to us many phantoms of religion
of late. Many societies, each with its theory to bind
human creatures together in worship and love, have
knocked at our door to tell us the truth of life.
Materialism has sought our suffrages, and humani-
tarianism. Ethics and science have offered us their
dishes and said : '* Eat and be satisfied." Vague
optimisms and mud-rooted pessimisms ; a religion of
humanity and a religion of unchristian theism, have
filled our ears with their cries, but when we have
found the more excellent, we are not likely to descend
to the less. We wish them all good fortune so far
as they minister to love. But when we are asked
for the foundation of life, we turn to Jesus and say :
" Lord, to whom shall we go ? Thou hast the words
of eternal life."

354

THE PREACHING OF THE KINGDOM

OF GOD

THE PREACHING OF THE KINGDOM

OF GOD

Neither shall they say, Lo here I or, lo there ! for,
behold, the kingdom of God is unthinyou.

St. Lukb xxii. 21

'TpHERE is one question which occurs to every
* minister in Church and sect, to every in-
telligent member of a congregation. It is this : '' Is
there any general statement, even law, which may
be laid down with regard to the best way of preach-
ing and the main subject of preaching?" If that
were possible, it would be an equal good for those
who speak and those who hear, and it would apply
to the case of teachers and congregations, in every
religious body, over the whole world.

The main subject of preaching is the human
heart of man and the human heart of God, and
their natural relation of love to one another. All
that belongs to love — of man to man, of man to God,
of God to man — that is the main subject. And the
best way of speaking of it is always to keep close to

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THE GOSPEL OP JOY

human nature; to the common, simple, universal
outgoings of the very heart of man. To do that is
to keep close to Christ.

Of course, there would naturally be exceptions to
this, or what would seem exceptions. When a
crisis in foreign or domestic affairs occurs, which
involves the principles of freedom and justice on
which our national life is founded, it would be wrong
not to speak of the principles involved in it in the
pulpit, as the Prophets of Israel spoke in their
day. When a crisis in theological thought arises,
or in social movements towards a nobler life for the
people, we must speak directly and unmistakably ;
but even in these crises we speak chiefly because
below the political, economical, or intellectual points
concerned, there lies in these questions that which
impassionates the human heart ; which has to do
with our love of man ; and with our love of God
the mover of men.

And there are times also, perhaps every year,
when it is wise to preach sermons on matters of
doctrine or practice seen from the standpoint of the
intellect alone ; on matters of theological interest or
ceremony — academic sermons which tell us how to
analyse and formulate our faith, how to wring the
laws of religious development out of the history
of religion. These are exceptions which the rule

358

THE PREACHING OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD

allows, provided the rule be obeyed ; and they are
wisely kept distinct from the sermon, in sets of
lectures or courses, because there is a great danger
lest the minister and the congregation may come to
like them so well that they may cease to care about
the emotions of the human heart, or the aspirations
of the human soul ; and even altogether to ignore
the spirit of man and its life with God, the imagina-
tions of which and their feelings move and rejoice
beyond the region alike of the intellect and the
conscience. And then religion decays, and the
church or chapel, where this kind of discourse forms
the rule, thins away into vanity and emptiness.

As exceptions then such discourses are useful,
even needful; but the bread and meat, the water
and wine, the air and light of the pulpit and the
church from week to week and year to year ; that
by which minister and people live and move and
have their being ; by which they grow in power and
in unity ; by which they extend their force beyond
themselves, and draw the outward world to them —
is the continuous preaching of the human heart of
man and of the human heart of God. The doings
of human nature which kindle pity, imagination, and
love ; the distresses of human nature under tempta-
tion and trial; its just unhappiness in the bitter
days of sin ; its rescue and repentance and joy in

359

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

deliverance ; its deep desires for the invisible and
the absolute, in which men most feel their brother-
hood to man and their immortal kindred with a God
who loves them; the natural feelings in which all
men share, and in which we believe God shares, in
which even the animals partly share ; the universal,
common loves and sorrows, joys and aspirations of
the impassioned soul, and their working in human life
— there is the main region of a preacher's work, the
foundation, the building, the furniture, and the orna-
ment of it. There is only one day in the week in
which this vital business is chiefly done, publicly, by
the human heart speaking to other hearts with the
force of personality. Why should we use up that
day, and shirk its special work, in essays, lectures,
discourses, which belong to other realms than the
realm where God and the soul embrace ; where the
heart of man meets with the immense humanity to
which it belongs ?

The world in which we live is a sorely tormented
world, full of woeful sins and their desolate results ;
torn with sorrows, terrible with inward and silent
battles. The men and women who sit below the
minister, the minister himself — if we could but look
within upon the world of their hearts or on the
labour of their spirit — are, for the most part, tossed

in storms, crying for light and peace, fighting despe-

360

THE PREACHING OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD

rately against wrong, stretching forth their hands
to God, or vainly longing for a sight of Him.
And when on one day in the week we come, freed
from the outward, to hear our brother's voice speak
to the inner life, we want to listen to something
which touches our own trouble and the vast trouble
of the world. We desire to hear how we can justly
forget our sins, and get rid of them ; how God
can help us ; how we can conquer our sorrows and
get their good ; how we can love and how we are
loved; and how the inevitable and terrible pain
of our brothers can be relieved. We need to be
told of joy and sympathy and comfort, of the powers
of love with us in the fierce warfare which we
cannot escape. This is the voiceless cry which goes
up Sunday after Sunday from congregated human
hearts all over the world. What have we to say
to it?

We live in a world of controversy. Day by day,
week by week, we are divided into parties that war
with one another ; denouncing, battering, even hating
each other, as we contend about political, social,
economical, literary, theological, and scientific ques-
tions — obscure, unsettled questions of the intellect.
The press is filled with this work ; our daily life from
Sunday to Sunday, our social meetings are filled
with it. Fighting and noise, obscurity and com-

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THE GOSPEL OF JOY

plexity beset us ; and it is all but impossible to hear
the still voices ; to breathe the fresh air of the
infinite ; to touch the quiet of God, or to sit among
the mother-thoughts of the universe.

So, wearied, we hope on one day at least to escape
from this noise ; to feel what love and gentleness and
tolerance mean ; to forget that we are men of a party
and to remember that we are men and brothers ; to
get into the deep quiet that lies at the heart of things ;
to touch what is simple, and easy to be understood,
and childlike to feel, what belongs to poor and rich,
to learned and unlearned, to the child and the old
man, to the one universal human heart which flows
deep and strong below the surface of life — that sur-
face ruffled so fiercely by the winds of our parties
and our problems, crossed so incessantly by the ships
which bear our vain and quarrelling and imper-
manent desires. These are the things we want, as
we meet on Sunday — rest and love, simplicity and
peace ; no controversy ; things for the soul that
need no debate, things that endure. A voiceless
cry goes up for them from the congregated hearts of
the world. What have we to say to it ?

We live in a world of steady commonplace. All

the week long we are at business, in the midst

of money-making and law, labour and trade ; shut up

in material things from morn to evening, fixed dowq

362

THE PREACHING OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD

to deadening toil, or drifting in idleness from club
to club| from amusement to amusement, tied to the
vulgar chariots of society. Beyond ourselves and our
class, beyond our commerce, speculation, bitter labour
or thoughtless entertainment, we have few thoughts
or hopes. Our life belongs to the visible, the
transient, and the material. Even our pursuit of
knowledge, our art and literature, are turned into
matters of money and success in the world.

Yet, he would have a false view of human nature
who imagined that this is all that it desires. Deep
below this self-interested and outside life, even in
those most enslaved by it, the soul aspires. It
seeks the perfect ; the love and beauty which are
eternal ; the invisible things of God ; the world in
which all the vain realities of the earth are as dust
and ashes ; the hopes and faiths which are un-
provable but felt and loved. It seeks the creations
of the pure imagination which eye hath not seen
nor ear heard. In spite of all the tyranny of the
material, the soul follows the gleam ; the ideal lifts
its glittering head above the turbid waters of the
real, and claims to be the veritable real.

In nourishing and in kindling in man this pursuit
of the invisible and the perfect is the salvation of
persons and societies, of nations and of the whole
world. Men need that it should be awakened and

363

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

encouraged at least once a week ; they need to hear
of things which have nothing to do with money and
business and fashion, with the course of the world
that passes away ; to touch the life of God, the ideal
hopes and desires of the spirit, the infinite love, the
ineffable beauty, the righteousness which is never
satisfied with itself, and the absolute self-forgetful-
ness. On one day at least let us be drawn upwards
into the light which never was on sea or land, into
the country where the spirit is at home, and walks,
a happy guest, with the great ideas. A voiceless cry
for help goes up from men and women overwhelmed
by the pressure of the material world I What have
we to say to it ?

To satisfy, even to speak to these cries, is not an
easy thing to do. It is ten times easier to write
essays on subjects of art, of literature, of history, of
sociology, of science, of ethical matters, of theo-
logical doctrine ; and indeed these discourses have,
as I have said, their use and place. But to preach
in the other fashion — to speak home to the soul
troubled with temptation, sin and sorrow; to get
down to the simple foundations of the universe,
where is quiet, and where love lets us loose from
controversy ; to find and manifest the ideals which
abide in the hiding-places of human nature; to call
on its primaeval powers — that is not easy : it is so

364

THE PREACHING OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD

difficult that it is continually evaded. Nor, indeed,
are men prepared to ask for such teaching. They
welcome it when it comes ; when they hear it, they
know they have wanted it ; but till they hear it, they
do not know what they want. The education given
in all the schools of the country, in colleges and in
universities, takes no note of these things. It is
almost wholly intellectual, scientific, and critical.
The world-tendency at present puts the things of
the inner life of the heart and spirit aside, and
dwells altogether on that which is to be seen and
proved ; on the matters which can be analysed by
the intellect, or put into successful practice by the
business capacities. It is difficult, in the midst of
this, to believe in, and speak to, the wants and
passions of the soul in man, but it is a difficulty
which ought to be faced and conquered; and the
whole world will be grateful to any one who
conquers it.

The task is not easy, nor is its preparation. Both
need a knowledge of human nature — a knowledge
hard to attain, a knowledge we can scarcely begin
to attain till our education is over; a knowledge
which must be pursued with undying eagerness
and sympathy all our lives long. Moreover, day
by day, as this knowledge grows, we shall have to
take it with us to the throne of God, and bind it

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THE GOSPEL OF JOY

up with Him who is the source of human nature —
so that we can never think of Man or speak of Man
without thinking of God and speaking of God, and
never think or speak of God without thinking and
speaking of Man.

To believe in this way in God; to try to know
the infinite personalities of human nature ; to have
enough imagination to see face to face the trouble
of humanity ; to love and understand its good, and
through its good its evil ; to hear the vast travail of
the race working out, through sorrow and sin,
through its passion for rest and for the perfect,
the new humanity which is to be; to penetrate
below the surface of life, and there to watch and
help in the battles of the individual soul; to feel
with all the universal and common passions ; to get
down to the parent laws on which the human soul
is built, and to which all the amazing variety of
human nature can be referred — this is the difficult
task of the teacher who would be a power for good
in the hands of God ; and he cannot do it by the
force of his intellect. It must be done by long-
trained love and by steady self-forgetfulness, by
earnest faith in Man as the Child of God, and in
God as the Father of Man.

We learn that knowledge slowly, letter by letter,

word by word ; but to preach it lovingly as we learn

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THE PREACHING OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD

it, and to hear it wisely — there is the moving power,
the inspiration, the art, by which the world is helped,
comforted, made alive, joyful, and regenerated.
And when the fire of prophecy is cold, and the im-
pulses which set spiritual mankind forward have
lost their spring ; and when criticism has taken the
place of literature, and metrical science the place
of poetry ; and ethical, intellectual, doctrinal, and
ritualistic discourses have driven the true sermon
from the pulpit — it is only by a return to nature ;
to the heart of man ; to the spirit of God in him ; to
that with which science and criticism and the powers
of the intellect have nothing to do ; to that which
leaves ethics behind and soars into the regions of
divine love — that the art of prophecy and poetry will
be again made vital, powerful, new, and glorious.

I might give from history a hundred instances of
such regeneration, but two will be enough. When
the art of painting was dead, or had nothing in it
to move itself or the world, one man, the scholar
of another who had begun the work, brought it
back to human nature. Giotto, full of the passion
of humanity, set his art into centuries of move-
ment by returning to the simple and vivid re-
presentation of the common feelings of the heart.
He painted motherhood and childhood and wrote

their emotions on the face and in the attitudes of

• 367

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

men. He painted the adoration of the soul, the
bitter sorrows of loss, the rapture of the spirit
going to God, the simple loves and faiths of human
nature. Even when he was most s3'mbolic he
was close to natural expression. Men read clearly
what he meant and rejoiced in it. They drank
again of the ancient springs of common human
feeling ; they felt the blood of humanity beating in
his pictures. His society rose around him in excite-
ment and delight ; his art was a fountain of life which
became a river. As it were out of nothing, a host
of new creators rose.

When poetry in England had become critical and

didactic ; when its imagination and passion had died ;

when it only spoke to a cultured class of men who

asked of it nothing but fine phrases — how did it once

more pour forth fresh waters from the living rock, and

quench the thirst of the weary pilgrims of eternity ?

It went back to sing of the common woes and

common love, human nature; of the faith and hopes of

common men ; of motherhood and sweethearting ; of

joy in widest commonalty spread ; of the simplicities

of the flowers and birds, of the clouds and waters of

the earth in contact with the heart of man ; of the

silent influences which flow day by day from the

natural world into the souls of the ignorant and the

wise, of the peasant and the king. It sang the

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THE PREACHING OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD

universal emotions of the human heart. The new
birth slowly grew : a few poets began it, and touched
the chords of this mighty harp. At last, Words-
worth came, and smote, like the desert chief of old,
the rock ; and poetry was reborn. All the great
singing of this century traces its living music back
to him. Poets rose out of the impulse that he
gave in a rejoicing host. Again the world was
taught to hang upon the breasts of nature and to
drink her milk of joy ; again it was brought back to
the fountain of life — to the daily heart of man and
its ever-fresh outgoings. Again the world was
comforted, healed and inspired; again taught to
love, admire, hope, and rejoice. The simple and
quiet, the eternal and ideal, were once more made
the heritage and the pleasure of mankind.

These two examples are enough. They might be
multiplied out of history. Every resurrection of
the life of the world has a similar beginning. And
if we wish to renew the religious life of England,
to make our preaching and our practice into inspira-
tion — let us return to the natural, to the common
doings and wants of the human heart and the long-
ing spirit ; and put the things of obscure knowledge,
of criticism and analysis, of the barren intellect,
into the second place. What have we to do with
them when we speak and listen, heart to heart, soul

369 2 A

THE GOSPEL OP JOY

to soul ; in the hours of worship when we commune
face to face with God, with Nature, and with
Humanity ? With other things we have then to do
— with those immortal labours and powers of the
universal heart of man which link us to our brothers
and our Father ; which grow not old ; interest in
which never fails ; whose beauty is always new ;
whose variety is infinite ; whose life kindles life ;
whose passion has its source in God.

But the subjects contained in this return to the
natural and common things, are not, it is often said,
sufficiently great, numerous, various, interesting or
beautiful, for a lifetime of teaching. That is the
great mistake of the present time. It is that mis-
take which makes the work of all the arts so poor
at present, and especially the art of preaching. We
have lost the sense that the greatest, the loveliest
and the most enduring subjects of thought and feeling
lie, not in the specialised and the uncommon, but in
the universal and common things of human nature.
We have lost the sense that in the emotions common
to all men, and not in the working of the educated
intellect which is not common to all; that in love
and not in knowledge ; the noblest and divinest
powers are found, and offer themselves for the work
of the poet. and the preacher. We have lost the

sense that not in rules of conduct which can be

370

THE PREACHING OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD

prescribed or in moral acts which may be reckoned
upi but in the passionate love of the spirit of man
for the perfect — for that which never can be pre-
scribed and never can be reckoned — the glory of
man is to be found and the impulse to his true life
be secured. Were it otherwise, were what is rarely
met with, were the uncommon, the most interesting,
the world would be indeed misfortuned. Had nature
made the most lovely things the least common, it
were not well-bred of nature. On the contrary,
God, the Master of nature, has been so kind to us
that all that we need for the exalting of the spirit,
for the fairest emotions of the heart, for all that the
imagination can desire for its food — is scattered
broadcast, in universal profusion, over outward
nature and in the world of the human heart. In-
finite beauty, joy, and love are poured out before
us, if we will but open our eyes and love. Under
the common lies the greatest and the loveliest ; in
the daily life of the affections abides what is most
interesting and most inspiring.

Yes, the most enduring and most moving sub-
jects for every art, and among the rest for the art of
preaching, are universal in nature and man, and
have lived a vivid life for countless centuries.
Many of them belong to the world before man was
made, and descend to us from the animals. Take,

371

WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY, THE
KINGDOM OF GOD?

THE GOSPEL OP JOY

It is not much use to argue with, or to attack
those who live for the things of this world alone.

334

THE AIMS OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD

You will not do much good in that way, but only
make a fruitless noise which will set the world more
closely to its own pursuits. But you will do good,
and fight the good fight of faith, by a personal grasp
of this spiritual life ; by so deep a conviction of it
that your whole life will be its witness ; by so great
a love of it that all men will feel that this life is the
first to you, and inconceivably dear to you — so dear
that you can no more join in the view which says
** all the world is bad " than you can help joining in
the new life, which declares that "the world is
passing on to a new and nobler being." Then when
that belief is yours, it is so uplifting that all your
knowledge will become creative, and all your creation
beautiful. That is the deepest foundation of the
Christian life in the world, now, and for the future.
It rests on the faith of Jesus, that God is in this
world, the Father of every man, the Spirit who
moves them onward into perfection, stage after stage,
revelation after revelation. And that is the very life
and voice of a Christian's prophesying. Prophesy
it with courage, with faith, with joyful hope, and
imaginative joy, before the old and decaying world,
that it may forget its exhaustion, and die that it
may live. Prophesy it within the new and up-
springing life of the world, that it may fulfil the
nobler society to which it now aspires.

335

WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY, THE
KINGDOM OF GOD?

Lord, to whom shall we go ? Thou hast the words of
eternal life,

St. John vL 68

339

THE GOSPEL OP JOY

340

WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY, THE KINGDOM OF GOD?

in the sacerdotal theories of the Roman Church, in
the " Confessions " of the various sects, are intellec-
tual, not spiritual arrangements, are necessarily
transient, belonging to the world, and have nothing
to do with the plain spiritual and eternal ideas
which Jesus declared. They are not to be found in
a single thing He said. They arose after His death :
they are the product of blind logic, not of the seeing
spirit; of limited thought, not of infinite feeling. They
are the poor prose of the transient ecclesiastic, not
the noble poetry of the Eternal Father — and without
rejecting the use of them altogether, whenever they
do not militate against the love of God and man
(for that is the test of their use), we say that they
are of no vital or absolute importance at all, and
have nothing to do with eternal life. They are of
the temporary, unspiritual world, the world of the
limited intellect — and the fashion of that world
passeth away. Clear your mind of them; live
within on a higher plane than that on which they
move. Your religion is to dwell in the Love of the
Father whose children you are, not in that conten-
tious argument of men upon doctrines of religion
which does away with the Fatherhood of God and
the Brotherhood of man.

And, indeed, the first and foremost truth which
Christ taught was ibat we are not alone in this

341

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

sorrowful world ; but that, beyond all its sorrows,
we are in the closest possible relation to Him who
made the world of men, and in whom its sorrows are
contained. Why sorrows and sins prevail on earth,
we can but dimly see, but in spite of them, Jesus —
and surely few have suffered more than He — believed
and maintained that God bore to us the personal
relation of a Father, and that we were His dear
children whom He loved. " There," He thought, " is
the healing of the world, the medicine for sin and
sorrow." Indeed, to believe this is to bring right-
eousness into life and joy into pain.

When we know that we love God and that God
loves us, we are healed of the grievous wounds of
life. In the infinite flood of divine and human love
our sins and sorrows are drowned, and the ark of joy
and peace alone survives. To have the heart full
of love, and to feel that we are infinitely loved, is so
divine a passion that it lifts us into a world where
we forget our pains and wrong. We feel our pains
and sins, but even when we feel them, and many
are our days of depression, we feel them only for a
time. We know they will come to an end, and all
the arguments based on them against the goodness
and love of God drifl away like feeble clouds before
the summer wind. The soul is at peace, though life
be shipwrecked in the storm. We know, though we

342

WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY, THE KINGDOM OF GOD?

This is the first truth as it is in Jesus. We are
of kin to God ; one with Him for ever ; children who
are loved by Him, and who will, as the ages pass
by, come to love Him as He loves us. That divine
and glorious end of universal love — all the children
brought to love their Father, the Father living in
the heart of every child — that is the " far-oflF divine
event to which the whole creation moves."

Children, even the worst, are not abandoned
by a good father upon earth. Much more they
are not abandoned by their Father in heaven, in
whom goodness is deeper than the ocean of space !
But He does not make them good by force, by
miraculous command. He sets us to work out our
salvation, with His help, as true men win their
liberty — by their own struggle. We must conquer
goodness at the point of the sword. Through
mighty effort against wrong, through free choice of
good, through troubles and endurance, even through
depths of wrong, God leads His children at last to
realise their true being and to know Him as theirs

343

THE GOSPEL OP JOY

for ever. That was the belief and the Gospel of
Christ; and its proclamation — that God was the
Lover of all, a universal Father — made a new world.
Had it been held by all, we should be now a
thousand years in advance of what we are. But the
theologians and the doctrine-mongers limited God's
Fatherhood ; made it true only on conditions which
they themselves, for the sake of keeping their power,
imposed on men. It is on the shoulders of those
among them who limited the illimitable love of Christ,
that the crime lies of destroying the progress of the
world, of injuring the whole body of humanity, of
degrading Christ, of making men into haters of God
and deniers of love.

344

WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY, THE KINGDOM OF GOD?

with all our heart and soul and mind and strength ;
and not to love ourselves. That was the first idea
of Jesus.

345

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

the Strange delight that we are in union with God
and His righteousness, and to do what the feeling
urges ; to feel the emotion of joy in that urging us to
the act of good. Yes, that is the Forgiveness of
Sins. A new life is open to us. We hear the voice
of Jesus : " Go, you will sin no more."

346

WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY, THE KINGDOM OF GOD ?

of history to the Bible. The real matter is deep
within, beyond these transitory things. Knowledge,
the mind of man, can do nothing to help this sorrow
to a final cure.

347

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

could but reach their infinite depth in thought.

" Her sins which are many are forgiven her, for she

loved much." That was the second declaration of

Jesus, and it followed from His doctrine of a Father

of men who, being good, loved them, and could not,

consistently with fatherhood, leave His children to

be mastered by evil. He was bound to make them,

in the end, holy with Himself.

But this inferred a third truth — the immortality of

the soul, of the conscious personality of the child of

God. The Father is immortal, therefore the child.

Goodness and Love— two names of the same thing

— ^are necessarily eternal. If the child is to reach

the goodness and love of the Father, he must be as

eternal as the Father. If all this trouble be taken

with the individual child, it is ridiculous to the

reason, and inconceivable to the hearty that the

Father should fling that which He laboured for and

loved into annihilation. If we allow that God is a

Father, that conclusion of death is unthinkable.

Then, also, thousands and thousands of persons in

our scrap of seventy years do not, and cannot, get rid

of their evil. What shall we say to that ? We say

that if the Fatherhood of God imply the redemption

of Man, as Christ maintained, then there must be

another life in which these wretched children are

redeemed. If Love is to be Lord of all, if it is Lord

348

WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY, THE KINGDOM OF GOD?

of ally we cannot be left to death or to evil. God
would, in doing so, violate His own nature, be false
to the very basis of His being. If there be a Father,
not one child loses his life for evermore.

Of course if there be no God, or if He be a tyrant,
these arguments fall through ; and the fact is, that
those who disbelieve immortality are driven to dis-
belief in God, or to disbelief in His being Love. But
Christ did not disbelieve in immortal life for man*
He said it inevitably followed on his faith in the
Fatherhood of God; and He proclaimed the immor-
tality of His brother men; and indeed without it, all
His previous declarations would have been as snow
in the water. They would have died as they fell on
the heart of man.

These are the three great ideas that Christ pro-
claimed to the personal soul ; and in them, for our
individual lives, all Christianity is contained. The
first secures Lx)ve, with its universal power. The
second secures Conduct, the doing of righteousness,
with its universal use. The third secures Life,
with its universal joy, and the life will finally be at
one with Love and Righteousness. The three
truths mingle, like the three primary colours, into
absolute light. Of course, we can weave out of
them by intellectual analysis all kinds of doctrines,
forms and ceremonies; but these rise and pass

349

THE GOSPEL OF JOY

away, and they have no weight except for a time.
They are unnecessary in the eternal world of God ;
not one of them touches our salvation, that is, our
union with Grod ; they are human, not divine ; of the
Church and the sect, not of Christ. Of course, we
can make out of them all the motives and means for
the infinite variety of spiritual emotion in the various
souls of men ; in their art and literature and life ;
but these are but the playing of the waves in our
souls at the bidding of the winds of circumstance.
They ruffle the surface of the ocean. The deep
unfathomable ocean itself is the three great Christian
conceptions, the three great Christian truths — the
Fatherhood of God, the Forgiveness of Sins, the
Immortality of the Soul. These are Christianity,
and all the rest is either transient, or unnecessary.
These are the three that abide ; these are the most
excellent thoughts on which a man can anchor his
ship of life. These, as the world passes away and
the desire thereof, endure and shine like the eyes
of God Himself. Our business and our glory is to
live in them ; to abide in the abiding ; to cling to
the most excellent

This then is the teaching of Christ in relation
to the individual soul. But if that were all, more
than half of our deepest interests would be left
out. More than half of human life would be un-

330

WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY, THE KINGDOM OF GOD?

Thus He bound up personal with collective
religion, the individual soul with the soul of mankind;
the love of Grod with the love of man ; the particular
with the universal. In His relation to God within
His own soul, Jesus stood alone with God, and His
individuality was preserved. In our separate rela-
tion to God, each in his own soul, our individuality

351

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